


Hide and Seek

by 5cents



Category: Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 1950s, Arranged Marriage, Bensexual Rey, Domestic Violence, F/M, Infantized Rey, Rey is married to Snoke but in name only, Reysexual Ben, Sexism, Southern Gothic, Virgin Ben Solo, Virgin Rey, child bride, period typical racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 05:25:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14867460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/5cents/pseuds/5cents
Summary: AWAKENING...  A story of love and desire, vengeance and violence, in a small Southern town.Rey is a pretty teenaged bride who marries an oafish, older man on the condition that it would be a marriage in name only until her twentieth birthday.  Two nights before Rey’s birthday, her husband, goaded by her taunts about their poverty and her threats to leave him, sets fire to a competitor’s factory.  He thereby brings to his doorstep the enraged owner, a handsome young Sicilian, who seeks revenge and finds, instead...  Rey!Adapted from the Tennessee Williams’ 1956 film, condemned by the then-powerful Legion of Decency because of its trashiness, “Baby Doll” and play “27 Wagons Full of Cotton.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ria84](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ria84/gifts).



> Special THANK YOU to Riabear, who inspired me to write this after months of the most heinous case of writer's block <333
> 
> Special THANK YOU to @ballerosaga on Tumblr for creating the beautiful art for HaS <333
> 
> My Tumblr: @5-cents

_"She wouldn't let her husband come near her... She wouldn't let the Stranger go away."_ — from _Baby Doll_

__

__

A voluptuous girl, under twenty, sleeps on a bed, with the covers thrown off. Rey “Babydoll” Snoke, Archie Lee’s virgin wife. A sound disturbs her sleep, a steady sound, furtive as a mouse scratching, she stirs, it stops, she settles again, it starts again. Then she wakes, without moving, her back to that part of the wall from which the sound comes.

She is a little frightened of what sounds like a mouse in the woodwork and still doesn't sound like a mouse in the woodwork. Then a crafty tool. 

She gets up, as the sound continues, and moves stealthily out of her room.

She comes out of her room into the hall and just as stealthily opens the door to an adjoining room and peeks in.

Rey is astonished and angry at what she sees:

Archie Lee Snoke. He is crouched over a section of broken plaster in the wall, enlarging a space between exposed boards with a penknife. Unshaven, black-fowled, in sweaty pajamas. On the bed table behind him is a half-empty bottle of liquor, an old alarm clock, ticking away, a magazine called _Spicy Fiction_ and a tube of ointment. After a moment he removes the knife and bends to peer through the enlarged crack. 

“Archie Lee. You're a mess.”

Snoke recovers. 

“Do y’know what they call such people? Peepin' Toms!”

“Come in here, I want to talk to you.”

“I know what you're going to say, but you can save your breath.”

“We made an agreement...” Snoke interrupts.

“You promised my daddy that you would leave me alone till I was ready for marriage…”

“Well?”

“Well, I'm not ready for it yet…”

“And I’m going crazy...”

“Well, you can just wait…”

“We made an agreement that when you was nineteen, long and lean, we could be man and wife in more than just in name only.”

“Well, I won't be twenty till November the seventh…”

“Which is the day after tomorrow!”

“How about your side of that agreement — that you'd take good care of me? GOOD CARE OF ME! Do you remember that?! Now the Hutt and Sons’ Pay As You Go Plan Furniture Company is threatening to remove the furniture from this house. And every time I bring that up you walk away…”

“Just going to the window to get a breath of air...”

“Now I'm telling you that if the Hutt and Sons’ Pay As You Go Plan Furniture Company takes those five complete sets of furniture out of this house then the understanding between us will be canceled. Completely!”

Snoke at the window. He listens to the distant sound of the First Order Cotton Gin. Like a gigantic distant throbbing heartbeat. Snoke puts the window down. He crosses to the mirror, dolefully considers his appearance. 

“Yeah, just look at yourself! You're not exactly a young girl's dream come true, Archie Lee Snoke.”

The phone rings downstairs. This sound is instantly followed by an outcry even higher and shriller. 

“Maz screams ev'ry time the phone rings.”

“What does she do a damn fool thing like that for?”

The phone rings again. Maz screams downstairs. The scream is followed by high breathless laughter. Sounds coming from downstairs. Snoke exits. 

“She says a phone ringing scares her,” Rey says after him.

Snoke lumbers over to a hall staircase, much too grand for the present style of the house, and shouts down to the old woman below, “Maz, why don't you answer that phone?”

Maz Kanata comes out of the kitchen and walks towards the downstairs hall telephone, withered hand to her breast. “I cain't catch m'breath, Snoke. Phone give me such a fright.”

Snoke yells from above, “Answer it.”

She has recovered some now and gingerly lifts the receiver. “Hello? This is Miss Maz Kanata speaking. No, the lady of the house is Mrs. Archie Lee Snoke, who is the daughter of my former charge and employer that passed away...”

Snoke is hurrying down the stairs. “They don't wanta know that! Who in hell is it talking and what do they want?”

“I'm hard of hearing. Could you speak louder, please? The what? Hutt and Sons’ Pay As—”

With amazing, if elephantine, speed, Snoke snatches the phone from the old woman. “Gi'me that damn phone. An’ close the door.”

The old woman utters her breathless cackle and backs against the door. Snoke speaks in a hoarse whisper. “Now what it this? Aw. Uh-huh. Today? Aw. You gotta g'me more time. Yeah, well you see I had a terrible setback in business lately. The First Order Plantation built their own cotton gin and're ginnin' out their own cotton, now, so I lost their trade and it's gonna take me a while to recover from that... Then TAKE IT OUT! TAKE IT OUT! Come and get th' damn stuff. And you'll never get my business again! Never!”

They have hung up on him. He stands there — a man in tough trouble. Then abruptly starts massaging his scarred head of hair. 

“Snoke, honey, you all aren't going to lose your furniture, are you?” Maz says timidly.

In a hoarse whisper, “Will you shut up and git on back in the kitchen and don't speak a word that you heard on the phone, if you heard a word, to my wife! And don't holler no more in this house, and don't cackle no more in it either, or by God I'll pack you up and haul you off to th' county home at Otoh Gunga.”

“What did you say, Snoke, did you say something to me?”

“Yeah, I said shoot.” He starts upstairs. 

Maz cackles uneasily and enters the kitchen.

Suddenly, another scream from her. BB-8, the hen, is on top of the kitchen table peeking the corn bread. 

Snoke heads back to his bedroom. Rey appears in a flimsy wrapper at the turn of the stairs crossing to the bathroom. 

“What made her holler this time?”

“How in hell would I know what made that ole woman holler this time or last time or the next time she hollers.”

“Last time she hollered it was because you throwed something at her.”

She enters the bathroom. Snoke stands in the doorway. “What did I ever throw at Old Maz Kanata?”

Rey’s voice comes from inside the bathroom, “Glass a water. Fo' singin’ church hymns in the kitchen...”

The shower goes on. 

“This much water! Barely sprinkled her with it! To catch her attention. She don't hear nothing, you gotta do somethin' to git the ole woman's attention.”

On an abrupt impulse he suddenly enters the bathroom. A struggle. The shower. 

“Keep y'r hands off me! Will yuh? Keep your hands off?... Off.”

Snoke comes out of the bathroom good and wet. The shower is turned off. Rey’s head comes out past the door. 

“I'm going to move to Varykino Hotel, the very next time you try to break the agreement! The very next time!” She disappears...

Snoke wet.

***

Snoke is seated in his 1937 Chevy Sedan. The car is caked with pale brown mud and much dented. Pasted on the windshield is a photo of Rey smiling with bewilderment at the birdie-in-the-camera. 

Snoke honks his horn with unconcealed and unmodified impatience. “Babydoll! Come on down here, if you're going into town with me. I got to be at the doctor's in ten minutes.”

No answer.

“Babydoll!!!”

“If you are so impatient, just go ahead without me. Just go ahead. I know plenty of ways of getting downtown without you,” Rey’s voice said from inside the house.

“You come on...”

Silence. Just the sound of the First Order Gin. Snoke does a sort of imitation. His face is violent. “Babydoll!!!”

Rey comes out on the sagging porch of the mansion. She walks across the loose boards of the porch through stripes of alternate light and shadow from the big porch pillars. She is humming a little cakewalk tune, and she moves in sympathy to it. She has on a skirt and blouse, white, and skintight, and pearl chokers the size of gold balls seen from a medium distance. She draws up beside the car and goes no farther. 

“You going in town like that?”

“Like what?”

“In that there outfit. For a woman of your modest nature that squawks like a hen if her husband dares to put his hand on her, you sure do seem to be advertising your...”

Rey drowns him out. “My figure has filt out a little since I bought my trousseau AND paid for it with m'daddy's insurance money. I got two choices, wear clo'se skintight or go naked, now which do you want me t’—”

“Aw, now, hell! Will you git into th’ car?”

Their loud angry voices are echoed by the wandering poultry.

“I will git into the rear seat of that skatterbolt when you git out of the front seat and walk around here to open the door for me like a gentleman.”

“Well, you gonna wait a long time if that's what you're waiting for!”

“I vow my father would turn over in his grave.”

“I never once did see your father get out and open a car door for your mother or any other woman… Now get on in...”

She wheels about and her wedgies clack-clack down the drive. At foot of drive she assumes a hitchhiker's stance. A hotrod skids to a sudden and noisy stop. Snoke bounds from his car like a jackrabbit, snatching a fistful of gravel as he plummets down the drive. Hurls gravel at grinning teenage kid’s hotrod, shouting incoherently as they shoot off, plunging Rey and her protector in a dust cloud. Through the dust, “Got your license number you pack—”

***

They are jolting down the road. 

“Babydoll, y'know they's no torture on earth to equal the torture which a cold woman inflicts on a man that she won't let touch her??!! No torture to compare with it! What I've done is!! Staked out a lot in hell, a lot with a rotten house on it and five complete sets of furniture not paid for...”

“What you done is bit off more'n you can chew.”

“People know the situation between us. Yestiddy on Sith Street one of them hoods from Sith Street Boys yelled to me, ‘Hey Archie Lee, has y'wife outgrowed the crib yet??’ And three or four others haw-hawed! Public! Humiliation!”

Rey in the backseat, her beads and earrings ajingle like a circus pony's harness. “Private humiliation is just as painful.”

“Well! — There's an agreement between us! You ain't gonna sleep in no crib tomorrow night, Baby, when we celebrate your birthday.”

“If they remove those five complete sets of furniture from the house, I sure will sleep in the crib because the crib's paid for — I'll sleep in the crib or on the top of old Maz’s pianner...”

“And I want to talk to you about Maz… I'm not in a position to feed and keep her any—”

“Look here, Big Shot, the day Maz is unwelcome under your roof...”

“Babydoll, honey, we just got to unload ourselves of all unnecessary burdens... Now she can't cook and she—”

“If you don't like m’dear Maz’s cookin’, then get me a regular servant. I'm certainly not going to cook for a fat ole thing like you, money wouldn't pay me — Owwwww!”

Snoke backhands her. And prepares to do so again. 

“Cut that out!”

“You better quit saying 'fat ole thing’ about me!”

“Well, you get young and thin and I'll quit calling you a fat old thing. — What's the matter now?”

Snoke points to off right with a heavily tragic gesture.

The First Order Gin. From their traveling viewpoint it is new, handsome, busy, clearly prospering. A sign (large) reads: FIRST ORDER COTTON GIN. 

“There it is! There it is!”

“Looks like they gonna have a celebration!”

“Why shouldn't they!!?? They now got every last bit of business in the county, including every last bit of what I used to get.”

“Well, no wonder, they got an up-to-date plant — not like that big pile of junk you got!!”

Snoke glares at her.

Snoke and Rey enter the waiting room of the town doctor’s office, and he is still hotly pursuing the same topic of discussion. 

“Now I'm just as fond of Maz...” 

“You ain't just as fond of Maz—”

“Suppose she breaks down on us?? Suppose she gets a disease that lingers?”

Rey snorts. 

“Alright, but I'm serving you notice. If that ole woman breaks down and dies on my place, I'm not going to be stuck with her funeral expenses. I'll have her burned up, yep, cremated, cremated, is what they call it. And pack her ashes in an ole Coca-Cola bottle and pitch the bottle into NABOO BAYOU!!!”

Rey crosses to the inner door. “Doctor Hux? Come out here and take a look at my husband. I think a mad dawg's bit him. He's gone ravin’ crazy!!”

The tall, blond receptionist, Phasma, appears. “Mr. Snoke’s a little bit late for his appointment, but the doctor will see him.”

“Good! I'm going down to the—”

“Oh, no, you're gonna sit here and wait till I come out...”

“Well, maybe...”

Snoke observes that she is exchanging a long, hard stare with a young man slouched in a chair. “And look at this! Or somethin’.” He thrusts a copy of _Screen Secrets_ into her hands and shoves her into a chair. Then glares at the young man, who raises his copy of _Confidential_.

Snoke is stripped down to the waist. The redheaded doctor has just finished examining him. From the anteroom, laughter, low. Which seems to make Snoke nervous. 

“You're not an old man, Archie Lee, but you're not a young man, either.”

“That's the truth.”

“How long you been married?”

“Just about a year now.”

“Have you been under a strain? You seem terrible nervous?”

“No strain at all! None at all...” Sounds of low laughter from the waiting room. Suddenly, Snoke rushes over and opens the door.

Rey and the young man are talking. He quickly raises his magazine… Snoke closes the door, finishes dressing...

“What I think you need is a harmless sort of sedative...”

“Sedative! Sedative! What do I want with a sedative???” Snoke bolts out of the office...

Snoke’s car goes down Sith Street. Rey sits on her side aloof. Suddenly a moving van passes the other way. On its side is marked the legend: HUTT & SONS’ PAY AS YOU GO PLAN FURNITURE COMPANY. Suddenly, Rey jumps up and starts waving her hand, flagging the van down, then when this fails, flagging Snoke down.

“That was all our stuff!”

“No it wasn't...”

“That was our stuff. Turn around, go after them.”

“Babydoll, I've got to wait down here for my prescription...”

At this moment another Hutt & Sons’ Pay As You Go Plan Furniture Company goes by, in the other direction. 

“There goes another one, towards our house.”

“Baby, let's go catch the show at the Virdugo Plunge.” She starts beating him. “Or let's drive over to the Flaming Porg and have some barbecue ribs and a little cold beer.”

“That's our stuff...!”

Snoke looks the other way. 

“I said that's our stuff...!! I wanta go home. HOME. NOW. If you don't drive me home now, I'll, I'll, I'll Mr. Ackbar. Mr. Gial Ackbar. You live on Theed Road...”

“I'll drive you home.” He spins the car around and they start home. 

Snoke’s car turns in the drive. The van they saw is backed up to the house, and furniture is being removed from the house. Rey runs among them and starts to beat the movers. They go right on with their work, paying no attention. After a time Maz puts her arms around Rey and leads her into the house. 

Snoke is really in a spot. Again he hears the sound of the First Order Cotton Gin. He mimes the same sound, imitating it, he made earlier. He looks in its direction and spits. Then he gets out of the car and walks towards his empty house.

Rey is sobbing by the parlor window. The screen door creaks to admit the hulking figure of Snoke, approaching, “Babydoll...”

“Leave me alone in here. I don't want to sit in the same room with a man that would make me live in a house with no furniture.”

“Honey, the old furniture we got left just needs to be spread out a little...”

“My daddy would turn in his grave if he knew, he'd turn in his grave.”

“Babydoll, if your daddy turned in his grave as often as you say he'd turn in his grave, that old man would plow up the graveyard.”

Somewhere outside Maz is heard singing: "Rock of Ages!”

“She's out there pickin' roses in the yard just as if nothing at all had happened here...”

“I'm going to move to the Varykino Hotel. I'm going to move to the Varykino Hotel…”

“No, you ain't, Babydoll.”

“And I’m going to get me a job. The manager of the Varykino Hotel carried my daddy's coffin, he'll give me work.”

“What sort of work do you think you could do, Babydoll?”

“I could curl hair in a beauty parlor or polish nails in a barbershop, I reckon, or I could be a hostess and smile at customers coming into a place.”

“What place?”

“Any place! I could be a cashier.”

“You can't count change.”

“I could pass out menus or programs or something and say hello to people coming in!” She rises. “I'll phone now.” And exits.

Rey crosses to the hall telephone. She is making herself attractive as if preparing for an interview. “Varykino? This is Mrs. Snoke, I want to reserve a room for tomorrow mornin' and I want to register under my maiden name, which is Rey Jakku. My daddy was T. C. Jakku who died last summer when I got married and he is a very close personal friend of the manager of the Varykino Hotel — you know — what's his name...”

Snoke comes out door and wanders into the yard, passing Maz, who holds a bunch of roses. “Snoke, look at these roses! Aren't they poems of nature?”

“Uh-huh, poems of nature.” He goes past her, through the front gate and over to his Chevy. 

The front seat on the driver’s side has been removed and a broken-down commodious armchair put in its place. 

Sound of the First Order Gin, throbbing. Snoke reaches under the chair and fishes out a pint bottle. He takes a slug, listens to the First Order, takes another. Then he throws the bottle out of the car, turns the ignition key of the car and...

The Chevy rocks out of the yard.

***

The Niima Cafe is a habitually crowded place. Tonight it is empty. In the corner a customer or two. Behind the bar, the man in the white apron with nothing to do is sharpening a frog gig on a stone. Snoke enters, goes over to the bar. 

“Didn't get to the bank today, Plutt, so I’m a little short of change...”

The bartender has heard this before. He reaches to a low shelf and takes out an unlabeled bottle and pours Snoke a jolt. 

“Thanks. Where's everybody?”

“Over to the First Order Gin. Free liquor over there tonight. Why don't you go over?” Then Plutt laughs sardonically.

“What's the occasion?”

“First anniversary. Why don't you go over and help them celebrate.”

“I'm not going to my own funeral either.”

“I might as well lock up and go home. All that's coming in here is such as you.”

“What you got there?”

Plutt holds up a frog gig. The ends, where just sharpened, glisten. 

“Been getting any frogs lately?”

“Every time I go out. Going tomorrow night and get me a mess. You wanna come? There's a gang going. You look like you could use some fresh meat.”

Another rather despondent-looking character comes in. 

“Hey, Teedo, how you doing?”

“Draggin’ man.”

“Why ain't you over to the First Order like everybody else?”

“What the hell would I do over that place... That place ruined me... ruined me...”

“The liquor's running free over there tonight. And they got fireworks and everything...”

“Fireworks! I’d like to see the whole place up in smoke.” Snoke leans forward confidently. “Say, I’m good for a couple, ain't I?”

As the Plutt reaches for the same bottle-without-a-label...


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Artwork by @ballerosaga on Tumblr.

A big platform has been built for the First Order celebration and decked out with flags, including the Stars and Bars of Dixie and the Mississippi State Banner. A band is playing "Mississippi Millions Love You," the state song, which is being sung by an emotioned spinster. Several public officials are present, not all of them happy to be there as the county has a strongly divided attitude towards the First Order-owned plantation. Some old local ward heeler is reeling onto the speaker platform and a signal is given to stop the band music. Jar Jar Binks lifts a tin cup, takes a long swallow and remarks, “Strongest branch water that ever wet my whistle. Must of come out of Naboo Bayou.”

There is a great haw-haw. 

“Young man? Mr. Solo. This is a mighty fine party you're throwing tonight to celebrate your first anniversary as superintendent of the First Order Plantation and Gin. And I want you to know that all of us good neighbors are proud of your achievement, bringin' in the biggest cotton crop ever picked off the blessed soil of Solleu River County.”

Ben Solo is a handsome, cocky young Italian. His affability is not put on, but he has a way of darting glances right and left as he chuckles and drinks beer which indicates a certain watchfulness, a certain reserve. He has a Roman Catholic medallion on a chain about his neck.

He has also picked up, among the other listeners, some uninvited guests... including Snoke and his friend from the Niima Cafe. Snoke is well on the way and, of course, his resentment and bitterness are much more obvious. 

“Now when you first come here, well, we didn't know you yet and some of us old-timers were a little standoffish, at first.”

Solo’s face has suddenly gone dark and sober. In his watchfulness he has noticed the hostile guests. With a sharp gesture of his head, he summons two men who work for him — Poe Dameron, a bronze-skinned Guatemalan, matinee idol, with large, dark, bedroom eyes — and Finn Storm, black, solidly built, smooth-faced handsome with a boyish charm all his own — who come up and kneel alongside. The following colloquy takes place right through Jar Jar Binks’ lines:

“There's a handful of guys over there that don't look too happy to me...”

“They got no reason to be. You put 'em out of business when you built your own gin, and started to gin your own cotton,” quips Dameron.

“Watch 'em, keep an eye on 'em, specially if they start to wander around...”

Binks, who has continued, “Natchully, a thing that is profitable to some is unprofitable to others. We all know that some people in this county have suffered some financial losses due in some measure to the success of the First Order Plantation.”

Solo looks around again. Rather defiantly, but at no one in particular. Between the knees of his corduroy riding breeches is a whip that he carries habitually, a braided leather riding crop. 

“But as a whole, the community has reaped a very rich profit.”

He has said this rather defiantly as if he knew he was bucking a certain tide... A voice from the crowd:

“Next time you run for office you better run on the Republican ticket. Git the darkie and spic vote, Fatso!”

Binks, answering, “Just look at the new construction been going on! Contractors, carpenters, lumbermen, not to mention the owner and proprietor of the Niima Cafe down the road there! And not to mention—”

Suddenly somebody throws something at the speaker, something liquid and sticky. Instantly, Dameron, Finn and Solo spring up...

“Who done that?!?!” Dameron jumps.

Solo crosses to the front of platform. “If anybody's got anything more to throw, well, here's your target, here's your standing target! The dago! The foreign wop!!”

Big rhubarb. Binks is wiping his face with a wad of paper napkins. 

Suddenly, something in the middle distance is on fire. The wide dark fields begin to light up. Voices cry alarm. Shouts, cries. Everyone and everything is lit by the shading radiance of the fire. Solo races towards the fire. It is in the gin building. The volatile dust explodes. Leaded wagons are being pushed away, by black field hands driven by Solo.

A fire engine arrives. But it seems lax in its efforts and inefficient. A hose is pulled out, but there is insufficient water to play water on the blaze, and the hose itself falls short. The firemen are not merely ineffectual. Some seem actually indifferent. In fact, some of their faces express an odd pleasure in the flames, which they seem more interested in watching than fighting. Solo rushes among them exhorting, commanding, constantly gesturing with his short riding crop. In his frenzy, he lashes the crop at the man holding the fire hose. The man, resentfully, throws the end of the hose at Solo, who seizes the nozzle and walks directly towards and into the flames. 

Now men try to stop him. Solo turns the hose on them, driving them back and then goes into the flames. He disappears from sight. All that is heard are his shouts in a foreign tongue.

A wall collapses. 

The hose suddenly leaps about as if it has been freed. The crowd. Horrified. Then they see something... Solo comes out. He holds aloft a small, gallon-size kerosene can. He strides at his trouser bottoms, which are hot. He is on the point of collapse. Men rush to him and drag him to a safe distance. He clutches the can. 

They lay him out, and crouch around him. He is smudged and singed. His amber eyes open, a cut above his brow cleaves his cheek, look around. From his distorted angle, lit by the victorious flames, are a circle of faces which are either indifferent or downright unfriendly. Some cannot control a faint smile. 

Solo clutches the can, closes his eyes. Another wall collapses. 

***

Snoke’s car turns into the drive. He descends noiselessly as a thief. He discovers Rey on the porch swing. There are several suitcases, packed and ready to go. In a chair near the porch swing, sleeping as mildly as a baby, is Maz. 

“What are you doin’ out here at one o'clock in the morning?...”

“I'm not talking to you.”

“What are you doing out here?”

“Because in the first place, I didn't have the money to pay for a hotel room, because you don't give me any money, because you don't have any money, and secondly, because if I had the money I couldn't have no way of getting there because you went off in the Chevy, and leave me no way of getting anywhere, including to the fire which I wanted to see just like everyone else.”

“What fire you talking about?”

“What fire am I talking about?”

“I don't know about no fire.”

“You must be crazy or think I'm crazy. You mean to tell me you don't know the cotton gin burned down at the First Order Plantation right after you left the house.”

Seizing her arm, “Hush up. I never left this house.”

“You certainly did leave this house. OW!!”

“Look here! Listen to what I tell you. I never left this house...”

“You certainly did and left me here without a coke in the place. OWW!! Cut it out!!”

“Listen to what I tell you. I went up to bed with my bottle after supper.” 

“What bed! OW!”

“And passed out dead to the world. You got that in your head?? Will you remember that now?”

“Let go my arm!”

“What did I do after supper?”

“You know what you did, you jumped in the Chevy an' disappeared after supper and didn't get back till just OWWW!!! Will you quit twisting my arm.”

“I'm trying to wake you up. You're asleep, you're dreaming! What did I do after supper?”

“Went to bed! Leggo! Went to bed. Leggo! Leggo!”

“That's right. Make sure you remember. I went to bed after supper and didn't wake up until I heard the fire whistle blow and I was too drunk to git up and drive the car. Now come inside and go to bed.”

“Go to what bed? I got no bed to go to!”

“You will tomorrow. The furniture is coming back tomorrow.”

Rey whimpers.

“Did I hurt my little baby's arm?”

“Yais.”

“Where I hurt little baby's arm?”

“Here...”

He puts a big wet kiss on her arm.

“Feel better?”

“No.”

Another kiss. This travels up her arm.

“My sweet babydoll. My sweet little babydoll.”

Sleepily, “Hurt... MMMmmmmm! Hurt.”

“Hurt?”

“Mmm!”

“Kiss?”

“Mmmmmmmmm.”

“Baby sleepy?”

“MMmmmmm.”

“Kiss good...?”

“Mmmmm...”

“Make little room... good...”

“Too hot.”

“Make a little room, go on...”

“Mmmm...”

“Whose baby? Big sweet... whose baby?”

“You hurt me... Mmmm...”

“Kiss...”

He lifts her wrist to his lips and makes a gobbling sound. That’s the idea of what their courtship — such as it was — was like. Also how passionately he craves her, willing to take her under any conditions, including fast asleep. 

“Stop it... Silly... Mmmmmm.”

“What would I do if you was a big piece of cake?”

“Silly.”

“Gobble! Gobble!”

“Oh you...”

“What would I do if you was angel food cake? Big white piece with lots of nice thick icin’?”

She giggles now, in spite of herself, also sleepy. “Quit.”

As close as he's ever been to having her, “Gobble! Gobble! Gobble!”

“Archie!”

“Hmmmmm...”

He's working on her arm.

“Skrunch, gobble, ghrumpt...”

“You tickle...”

“Answer little question...”

“What?”

Into her arm, “Where I been since supper?”

“Off in the Chevy.”

Instantly he seizes her wrist again. She shrieks. The romance is over. 

“Where I been since supper?”

“Upstairs...”

“Doing what?”

“With your bottle. Archie, leggo...”

“And what else...”

“Asleep. Leggo...”

Letting go, “Now you know where I been and what I been doing since supper. In case anybody asks.”

“Yeah.”

“Now go to sleep...” He seizes her suitcases and goes off into the house. 

Rey follows, and Maz follows her, asleep on her feet. As they go in, Snoke comes out and looks around. Then he listens. 

Nice quiet night. Real nice and quiet. 

The gin can no longer be heard.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Artwork by @ballorosaga on Tumblr.

It’s not quiet at the Niima Cafe at all. The area in front of the entrance is crowded with cars. A holiday mood prevails. It’s as if the fire has satisfied some profound and basic hunger and left the people of that community exhilarated. 

The pickup truck of Ben Solo drives up, shoots into a vacant spot. He leaps from the driver's cab. He has not yet washed, his shirt is torn and blackened and he has a crude bandage down his cheek and the arm that holds the whip. He stands for a few moments beside his truck looking around at the cars, trying to find the car of Darth Maul, which would indicate that that county official is inside. Then he sees what he's looking for. He walks over to the car which has the official seal on its side, and not finding Maul there, turns and strides into the juke joint...

Everybody is talking about the fire. The jukebox is a loud one. There are some dancing couples.

Ben Solo passes by a little knot of men. He is followed by Dameron and Finn, holding the kerosene can. They smile. 

“That ole boy is really burning!” says a male voice.

One of the men detaches himself and moves in the direction that Solo took. Then another follows. 

A group of men surround Maul. “What makes you think your gin was set fire to?”

“Look around you. Did you ever see such a crowd of happy faces, looks like a rich man's funeral with all his relations attending.”

“I'd hate to have to prove it.”

“I'd hate to have to depend on you to prove it.”

The man from the other group walks up. “What are you going to do about ginning out your cotton?”

“I'll truck it over to Gunga City. Wexley’ll gin it out for me.”

“Wexley got cotton of his own to gin.”

“Then I'll truck it across the river. Ain't nobody around here's gonna gin it.”

“I'm all set up to do it for you.”

“I wouldn't give you the satisfaction.”

The men drift back a few steps. 

Maul speaks a little for the benefit of the men in the room. “I honestly can't imagine if it was a case of arson who could of done it since every man jack that you put out of business was standing right there next to the platform when the fire broke out.”

“One wasn't. We know one that wasn't.”

Maul wheels on the bar stool to face Dameron. Sharply, “Looky here, boy! Naming names is risky, just on suspicion.”

“I didn't name his name. I just said we know it. And the initials are stamped on this here can.”

Quickly, Maul says, “Let's break it up, break it up, not the time or the place to make accusations, I'll take charge of this can. I'll examine it carefully to see if there's any basis for thinking it was used to start a fire with.”

Solo cuts in, “I run through fire to git that can, and I mean to keep it. Lock it up in the pickup truck, Finn." 

Finn leaves. Unobtrusively some men follow him. 

“Solo. Come over here. I want to have a word with you in one of these booths...” says Maul.

Finn enters the men's room. As he approaches the urinal, the light is switched out and the door is thrown open at the same moment. Hoarse muffled shouts and sounds of struggle and a metallic clatter. Then the light goes on and Finn is lying on the filthy cement floor, dazed. 

Solo and Dameron enter. They go to Finn.

“They got the can, boss.”

“Whose initials was on it? Huh? You said you seen some initials on the can.”

“Naw. It just said — Sears and Roebuck.”

Maul has come in and now reaches down and helps Finn to regain his feet...

“Sears and Roebuck! That does it! Hahaha. Boy, git up and git some black coffee in yuh.”

They pass through the door to the main room.

“Bazine, Baz! Give this boy some black coffee. He had a bad fall in the wrong outhouse. Hawhawhaw...”

But Solo and Dameron have steered Finn out the front door and they are gone. Maul follows...

Solo, Dameron and Finn head towards the pickup. Maul appears in the doorway. 

“Solo!”

Solo, Dameron and Finn are at the truck. They wait for Maul, who is walking towards them.

Soberly, plainly, he tells Solo, “You take the advice of an old man who knows this county like the back of his hand. It's true you made a lot of enemies here. You happen to be a man with foreign blood whose companions are a wetback and a darkie. That's a disadvantage in this county. A disadvantage at least to begin with. But you added stubbornness and suspicion and resentment.”

Solo makes an indescribable sound. 

“I still say, a warm, friendly attitude on your part could have overcome that quickly. Instead, you stood off from people, refused to fraternize with them. Why not drop that attitude now? If someone set fire to your gin — I say that's not impossible. Also, I say we'll find him. But I don't have to tell you that if you now take your cotton across the river, or into another county, it will give rise to a lot of unfriendly speculation. No one would like it. No one.” Abruptly he turns and goes. 

Finn, Dameron and Solo are left alone. Men watch them from the surrounding cars... from the doorway. 

“Did you ever see so many happy faces? Which one did it, Dameron, you said you knew...?”

“Well, they're all here... all here except one. The one that ain't here, I figure he did it.”

They get into the pickup.

“Well, he's the one that's gonna gin out my cotton...”

The motor starts... the car goes into gear... and moves. 

***

The next morning, Solo’s pickup truck is leading a long line of cotton wagons — full of cotton — down the road before Snoke’s house.

The pickup stops.

Dameron says, “Maybe it figures. But it sure puzzles me why you want to bring your cotton to the guy that burned down your gin...”

“You don't know the Christian proverbs about how you turn the other cheek when one has been slapped.”

“When both cheeks has been kicked, what are you gonna turn then?”

“You just got to turn and keep turning. Stop the wagons! I’m gonna drive up to his house.”

Dameron hops out of the pickup truck.

At an upstairs window is Snoke’s face. He is watching the wagons. Suddenly, he withdraws his head. 

He goes into a crazy, but silent Indian war dance. Then suddenly he can no longer contain himself and runs into the nursery.

Rey is asleep in the crib. Her thumb is in her mouth. Like a child, she's trying to hold on to her sleep. 

Snoke just whoops and hollers. “Babydoll! Babydoll! Get up...”

She can hardly believe her eyes...

From downstairs the pickup's horn sounds urgently. 

Maz rushes in breathlessly… “Snoke, honestly...”

Very Big Shot, Snoke barks, “Get her up! Get her up, get her washed and dressed and looking decent. Then bring her down. The furniture is coming back today...” He exits...

Solo, Dameron and Finn are sitting there in the pickup truck on the front yard.

They sit a little formally and stiffly and wait for Snoke, who comes barreling out of the house, and up to the pickup. 

“Don't say a word. A little bird already told me that you'd be bringing those twenty-seven wagons full of cotton straight to my door, and I want you to know that you're a very lucky fellow.”

Dryly, Solo queries, “How come?”

“I mean that I am in a position to hold back other orders and give you a priority. Well! Come on out of that truck and have some coffee.”

“What's your price?”

“You remember my price. It hasn't changed.”

Silence. The sense that Solo is inspecting him. 

“Hey, now looka here. Like you take shirts to a laundry. You take them Friday and you want them Saturday. That's special. You got to pay special.”

“How about your equipment? Hasn't changed either?”

“A-1 shape! Always was! You ought to remember.”

“I remember you needed a new saw-cylinder. You got one?”

“Can't find one on the market to equal the old one yet.”

“Come on down and have a cup of coffee. We're all ready for you.”

“I guess when you saw my gin burning down last night you must've suspected that you might get a good deal of business thrown your way in the morning.”

“You want to know something?”

“I'm always glad to know something when there's something to know.”

Dameron and Finn laugh wildly.

“I never seen that fire of yours last night! Now come on over to my house and have some coffee.”

The men get out of the truck. Snoke speaks to Dameron and Finn, “Y’all come too, if you want to... No, sir, I never seen that fire of yours last night. We hit the sack right after supper and didn't know until breakfast time this morning that your cotton gin had burned down.”

They go up on the porch. 

“Yes sir, it's providential. That's the only word for it. Hey, Babydoll! It's downright providential. Babydoll! Come out here, Babydoll!”

As Rey comes into the sunlight, making her way down the steps of the mansion, moving into the vicinity of the men. Snoke drags her reluctantly, casts a look to the men. She spots Solo for the first time — stops instantly...

His effect on her is instantaneous. Passion surges through her like a tidal wave. His hair, face, eyes — it all conspires to make her weak. It's like meeting someone for the first time, but seeing so much of herself in him, that his lips, eyes, mouth — she’s certain she has touched, and the desire to be with him becomes so strong that the very act of touching will release her in a way she never thought possible...

“You come right over here and meet the gentleman from the First Order Plantation.”

...Rey snaps out of it. Snoke is tugging at her arm, puzzled look on her face —

“Oh hello. Has something gone wrong, Archie Lee?”

“What do you mean, Babydoll?”

“I just thought that maybe something went...”

“What is your name again, sir?”

“Solo.”

“How do you spell it?”

Solo spells it. “Capital S-O-L-O.” Meantime, his eyes are on Rey. She's about 18 years old, brunette and pretty in a cute, innocent way. A tomboy-type whose emotions form so quickly, she has trouble sorting them out. Right now she's mad as hell — he thinks —

Rey gasps, locks eyes with him. She seems to jump out of her skin — it's obvious something unfamiliar and awful and wonderful is happening —

“Oh,” says Snoke, “Like solitary? A lone wolf. Any relation to Han Solo, y’know, the old bootlegger and card sharp?”

Solo ignores Snoke. Rey fidgets uncontrollably, the stranger’s gaze burning a hole into her very soul. Solo glances at Snoke, then stares at Rey, the ripeness of her look paralyzing. He tears his eyes away, puts on his sunglasses, looks toward the gin.

“What is that from? The Bible?”

“No, the Mother Goose book.”

“That name sounds foreign.” 

“It is, Mrs. Snoke. I'm known as the dago that runs the First Order Plantation.”

Snoke claps him heartily on the back. Solo stiffly withdraws from the contact. 

“Don't call yourself names. Let other folks call you names! Well, you're a lucky little fellow, silver, gold, or even nickel-plated, you sure are lucky that I can take a job of this size right now. It means some cancellations, but you're my closest neighbor. I believe in the good neighbor policy, Mr. Solo. You do me a good turn and I'll do you a good turn. Tit for tat. Tat for tit is the policy we live on. _Maz!”_ he snaps his fingers in Rey’s face, “Babydoll, git your daddy's ole nursemaid to break out a fresh pot of coffee for Mr. Solo.”

“You get her.”

“And honey, I want you to entertain this gentleman,” he envelops Rey in an unwelcome embrace, “Ha! Ha! Look at her blush. Haha! This is my baby. This is my little girl, every precious ounce of her is mine, all mine.”

He exits — crazily elated, calling "Maz!” The volume of his call makes her scream.

Rey emits an enormous yawn. It’s the most adorable thing Solo has ever seen.

“Excuse my yawn. We went to bed kinda late last night.”

Solo notices the discrepancy. He looks at Dameron and Finn, they also noticed. 

“So. You're a Solo?” She says it as if she were talking of great distinction. 

With ironic politeness, “It’s Sicilian, Mrs. Snoke. A very ancient people.”

She tries out the word, “Sish! Sish!”

“No ma'am. Siss! Sicilian.”

“Oh, how unusual.”

Snoke bursts back out on the porch.

“And honey, at noon, take Mr. Solo in town to the Varykino Hotel for a chicken dinner. Sign my name! It's only when bad luck hits you, Mr. Solo, that you find out who your friends are. I mean to prove it. All right. Let's get GOING! Baby, knock me a kiss!”

“What's the matter with you? Have you got drunk before breakfast?”

“Hahaha.”

“Somebody say something funny?”

“Offer this young fellow here to a cup of coffee. I got to get busy ginning that cotton.” He extends his great sweaty hand to Solo. “Glad to be able to help you out of this bad situation. It's the good neighbor policy.”

“What is?”

“You do me a good turn and I'll do you a good turn sometime in the future.”

“I see.”

“Tit for tat, tat for tit, as they say. Hahaha! Well, make yourself at home here. Babydoll, I want you to make this gentleman comfortable in the house.”

“You can't make anyone comfortable in this house. Lucky if you can find a chair to sit in.”

But Snoke is gone calling out: "Move those wagons!” etc., etc. 

Solo watches Snoke a moment, then eyes Rey again. The heat between them is apparent. Rey’s heart is pounding, she's not sure what to do.

She keeps her eyes on Snoke, hoping that a solution will present itself.

Sizing up the situation quickly, Solo again glances at Rey — but her eyes are fastened on Snoke. Feeling terribly shy and thinking there's nothing he can do to divert her attention away from him, he reluctantly heads for the pickup.

Rey finally hits upon something to say, turns — “Want some coffee?”

“No. Just a cool drink of water, thank you, ma'am.”

Her brow furrows, she looks out across the yard. He's calmly fiddling with the riding crop. Recognizing a challenge when she sees one, she formulates a plan, faces him unintentionally seductive, shoots him an open look. He stops suddenly, locks eyes with her, feels his knees go weak. Her hold on him is unmistakable. In this light, he thinks, he can glimpse the shadow of her crushing thighs under her dress flapping in the hot gust of wind. Oh, Lord. She's exquisite, takes a step toward him. Passion rings in his veins... 

“The kitchen water runs warm, but if you got the energy to handle an old-fashioned pump, you can get you a real cool drink from that there cistern at the side of the house...”

“I got energy to burn.”

Solo strides through the tall seeding grass to an old cistern with a hand pump, deep in the side yard. Dameron and Finn follow. BB-8 goes "Squawk! Squaw!” and Maz is singing "Rock of Ages” in the kitchen. 

Solo looks about contemptuously as he crosses to the cistern. “Dump their garbage in the yard, phew! Ignorance and indulgence and stink. Scavengers!”

“I thought that young Mizz Snoke smelt pretty good — sweet like honeysuckle.”

“You keep your nose with the cotton, Dameron,” Solo warns with an acute sting of jealousy, “And hold that dipper, I'll pump.”

“Sometimes water comes and sometimes it don't,” Maz tells Solo.

The water comes pouring from the rusty spout. 

“This time it did...”

“Bring me a dipper of that nice cool well water, please,” asks Rey.

Dameron crosses immediately with the filled dipper.

“Hey!” Even the view from where Solo stands, amid squalor, barefoot, iridescent sun-kissed skin, and a mane of thick, chestnut hair presents a beautiful and imposing figure. Her eyes are large and hazel — her look open and ripe. The girl doesn’t even know what she’s got, but that doesn’t make any excuse for Dameron and Finn — and the fact is she's scared as hell, Solo can _feel_ it, possessing a vulnerability that surprises her by its suddenness. 

“Squawk, squawk!!”

Maz approaches, smoothing her ancient apron. “I don't have the strength anymore in my arm that I used to, to draw water out of that pump.”

Solo is touched by her aged grace. “Would you care for a drink?”

“How do you do? I'm Maz Kanata. My employer and charge was Rey’s daddy, Mr. T. C. Jakku. I’ve been visiting here since… since…” She knits her ancient brow, unable to recall precisely when the long visit started. 

“I hope you don't mind drinking out of a gourd.” Solo hands her the gourd of well water. 

Dameron returns, saying aloud, “I could think of worse ways to spend a hot afternoon than delivering cool well water to Mrs. Snoke.”

“SCUSE ME PLEASE! That ole hen, BB-8, has just gone back in my kitchen!” Maz runs crazily to the house. 

Rey has wandered back to the cistern as if unconsciously drawn by the magnetism of the young Italian male. “They's such a difference in water! You wouldn't think so, but there certainly is.”

“Hold the dipper, I'll pump!” he tells Dameron and Finn. He brings up more water; then strips off his shirt and empties the brimming dipper over his head and at the same time he says to Dameron and Finn... “Go stay with the cotton. Go on! Stay with the cotton.”

Dameron and Finn go.

“I wouldn't dare to expose myself like that. My skin is freckled and tans too easily instead of creamy and delicate like porcelain.”

“I like the feel of a hot sun on my body.”

“You're awfully pale for an Italian.”

“Yes. Don't you have garbage collectors on Theed Road? It cost a little bit extra to git them to come out here and—”

“Archie Lee Snoke claimed it was highway robbery! Refused to pay! Now the place is swarming with flies an' mosquitoes and — oh, I don't know, I almost give up sometimes.”

“And did I understand you to say that you've got a bunch of unfurnished rooms in the house?”

“Five complete sets of furniture hauled away! By the Hutt and Sons’ Pay As You Go Plan Furniture Company.”

“When did this misfortune — fall upon you?”

“Why yestiddy! Ain't that awful?”

“Both of us had misfortunes on the same day.”

“Huh?”

“You lost your furniture. My cotton gin burned down.”

Not quite with it, “Oh.”

“Quite a coincidence!”

“Huh?”

“I said it was a coincidence of misfortune.”

“Well, sure — after all what can you do with a bunch of unfurnished rooms.”

“Well, you could play hide-and-seek.”

“Not me. I'm not athletic anymore. Ever since Archie Lee sold my prized thoroughbred Speeder.”

“I take it you've not had this place long, Mrs. Snoke.”

“No, we ain't had it long.”

“When I arrived in this county to take over the management of the First Order Plantation...” He chops at grass with the crop. “This place was empty. I was told it was haunted. Then you all moved in.”

“Yes it was haunted, and that's why Archie Lee bought it for almost nothing.” She pauses in the sun as if dazed. “Sometimes I don't know where to go, what to do.”

“That's not uncommon. People enter this world without instruction.”

She's lost him again. “Huh?”

“I said people come into this world without instructions of where to go, what to do, so they wander a little and...”

Maz sings rather sweetly from the kitchen, wind blows an Aeolian refrain. 

“...then go away...”

Now Rey gives him a quick look, almost perceptive and then... “Yah, well...”

 _“Drift_ — for a while and then... _vanish.”_ He stoops to pick a dandelion. “And so make room for newcomers! Old goers, new comers! Back and forth, going and coming, rush, rush!! _Permanent? Nothing!”_ He blows on the seeding dandelion. “Anything living!... last long enough to take it serious.”

They are walking together. There is the beginning of some weird understanding between them. 

They have stopped strolling by a poetic wheelless chassis of an old Pierce-Arrow limousine in the side yard. 

“This is the old Pierce-Arrow car that belonged to the lady that used to own this place and haunts it now.”

Solo steps gravely forward and opens the backdoor for her. “Where to, madam?”

“Oh, you're playing _show-fer!_ It's a good place to sit when the house isn't furnished...” 

She enters and sinks on the ruptured upholstery. He gravely puts the remnant of the dandelion in the cone-shaped cut-glass vase in a bracket by the backseat of the old limousine. 

She laughs with sudden, childish laughter. “Drive me along the river as fast as you can with all the windows open to cool me off.”

“Fine, Madam!”

She is suddenly aware of his body near her. “Showfers sit in the front seat.”

“Front seat's got no cushion.”

“It's hard to find a place to sit around here since the Hutt and Sons’ Pay As You Go Plan people lost patience. To sit in comfort, I mean...”

“It's hard to sit in comfort when the Hutt and Sons’ Pay As You Go Plan people lose their patience and your gin burns down.”

“Oh! But...”

“Huh?”

“You said that like you thought there was...”

“What?”

“Some connection! Excuse me, I want to get out and I can't get over your legs...” Her apathy is visited by a sudden inexplicable flurry of panic. He has his boots propped against the back of the front seat.

“You can't get over my legs? A little tomboy — a fine equestrienne — like you has surely climbed a few trees and rooftops before.”

“No. I'm not so athletic anymore. Archie Lee doesn’t like it.” She tries to open door on other side, but it is blocked by the trunks of a pecan tree.

“But it's cool here and comfortable to sit in. What's this here??” He has seized her wrist on which hangs a bracelet of many little gold charms. She sinks somewhat uneasily in beside him. 

“It's a, it's a... charm bracelet.”

He begins to finger the many little gold charms attached.

“My daddy gave it to me. Them there's the ten commandments.”

“And these?”

“My birthdays. It's stretchable. One for each birthday.”

“How many charming birthdays have you had?”

“As many as I got charms hanging on that bracelet.”

“Mind if I count 'em?”

They are close. An effect of two shy children trying to strike up a friendship. He continues to look at her. Black hair flowing, eyes wide and fantastic. But it passes and his smile becomes warm as sunlight. She isn’t looking into his face but down at the scuffed kid slipper. Abruptly he gives a short quick nod and says simply...

“Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, and...”

“That's all. I'll be twenty tomorrow. Tomorrow is Election Day and Election Day is my birthday. I was born on the day that Frank Delano Roosevelt was elected for his first term.”

“A great day for the country for both reasons.”

“He was a man to respect.”

“And you're a lady to respect, Mrs. Snoke.”

Sadly and rather touchingly, “Me? Oh, no — never got past the fourth grade.”

“Why'd you quit?”

“I had a great deal of trouble with long division...”

“Yeah?”

“The teacher would tell me to go to the blackboard and work out a problem in long division and I would go to the blackboard and lean my head against it and cry and cry and — cry... Whew! I think the porch would be cooler. Mr. Solo, I can't get over your legs.”

“You want to move my legs.”

“Yes, otherwise, I can't get out of the car...”

“Okay.” He raises his legs so she can get out. Which she does, and continues...

“YES, I would cry and cry... Well... soon after that I left school. A girl without education is — without education... Whew... Feel kind of dizzy. Hope I'm not gettin' a sunstroke. — I better sit in the shade...”

Solo follows her casually into the shade of the pecan tree where there's a decrepit old swing. Suddenly, he leaps into branches and then down with a pecan. He cracks it in his mouth and hands her the kernels. 

“Mr. Solo! I wouldn't dream! — excuse me, but I just wouldn't dream of eating a nut that a man had cracked in his mouth...”

“You've got many refinements. I don't think you need to worry about your failure at long division. I mean, after all, you got through short division, and short division is all that a lady ought to be called on to cope with...”

“Well, I — ought to go in, but I get depressed when I pass through those empty rooms...”

“All the rooms empty?”

“All but the nursery. And the kitchen. The stuff in those rooms was paid for...

“You have a child in the nursery?”

“Me? No. I sleep in the nursery myself. Let down the slats oh the crib...”

“Why do you sleep in the nursery?”

“Mr. Solo, that's a _personal_ question.”

There is a pause. 

“I ought to go in... but... you know there are places in that house which I never been in. I mean the attic for instance. Most of the time I'm afraid to go into that house by myself. Last night when the fire broke out I sat here on this swing for hours and hours till Archie Lee got home, because I was scared to enter this old place by myself.”

Solo has caught this discrepancy too. “It musta been scary here without your husband to look after you.”

“I'm tellin' you! The fire lit up the whole countryside and it made big crazy shadows and we didn't have a coke in the house and the heat and the mosquitoes and — I was mad at Archie Lee.”

“Mad at Mr. Snoke? What about?”

“Oh, he went off and left me settin' here without a coke in the place.”

“Went off and left you, did he??!!”

“Well, he certainly did. Right after supper and when he got back, the fire'd already broke out. I got smoke in my eyes and my nose and throat. I was in such a worn-out nervous condition it made me cry. Finally I took two teaspoons of paregoric.”

“Sounds like you passed a very uncomfortable night.”

“Sounds like? Well it was!”

“So Mr. Snoke — you say — disappeared after supper.”

After a pause, “Huh?”

“You say Mr. Snoke left the house for a while after supper?” Something in his tone makes her aware that she has spoken indiscreetly.

“Oh — uh — just for a moment.”

“Just for a moment, huh? How long a moment?”

“What are you driving at, Mr. Solo?”

“Driving at? Nothing.”

“You're looking at me so funny.”

“How long a moment did he disappear for? Can you remember, Mrs. Snoke?”

“What difference does that make? What's it to you, anyhow?”

“Why should you mind my asking?”

“You make this sound like I was on trial for something.”

“Don't you like to pretend like you're a witness?”

“Witness of what, Mr. Solo?

“Why — for instance — say — a case of arson!”

“Case of? What is — arson?”

“The willful destruction of property by fire.” He slaps his boots sharply with the riding crop.

“Oh!” She nervously fingers her purse.

“There's one thing I always notice about you ladies.”

“What's that?”

“Whenever you get nervous, you always like to have something in your hands to hold on to — like that big white purse.”

“This purse?”

“Yes, it gives you something to hold on to, isn't that right?”

“Well, I do always like to have something in my hands.”

“Sure you do. You feel what a lot of uncertain things there are. Gins burn down. No one know how or why. Volunteer fire departments don't have decent equipment. They're no protection. The afternoon sun is too hot. The trees! They're no protection! The house — it's haunted! It's no protection. Your husband. He's across the road and busy. He's no protection! The goods that dress is made of — it’s light and thin — it's no protection. So what do you do, Mrs. Snoke? You pick up that white kid purse. It's something to hold on to.”

“Now, Mr. Solo. Don't you go and be getting any funny ideas.”

“Ideas about what?”

“My husband disappearing — after supper. I can explain that.”

“Can you?”

“Sure I can.”

“Good! How do you explain it?” He stares at her. She looks down. “What's the matter? Can't you collect your thoughts, Mrs. Snoke?” Pause. “Your mind's a blank on the subject??”

“Look here, now…”

“You find it impossible to remember just what your husband disappeared for after supper? You can't imagine what kind of an errand he went out on, can you?”

“No! No! I can't!”

“But when he returned — let's see — the fire had just broken out at the First Order Plantation.”

“Mr. Solo, I don't have the slightest idea what you could be driving at.”

“You're a very unsatisfactory witness, Mrs. Snoke.”

“I never can think when people — stare straight at me.”

“Okay, I'll look away then.” He turns his back to her. “Now, does that improve your memory any? Now are you able to concentrate on the question?”

“Huh?”

“No? You're not?” Solo grins evilly. “Well— should we drop the subject??”

“I sure do wish you would,” she says eagerly.

“Sure, there's no use crying over a burnt-down gin. And besides, like your husband says — this world is built on the principle of tit for tat.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing at all specific. Mind if I...?”

“What?”

Solo approaches the swing where she sits. “You want to move over a little and make some room?”

Rey shifts slightly. “Is that room enough for you?”

“Enough for me. How about you?”

“Is it strong enough to support us both?”

“I hope. Let's swing a little. You seem all tense. Motion relaxes people. It's like a cradle. A cradle relaxes a baby. They call you ‘Baby,’ don't they?”

“That's sort of a pet name.”

“Well in the swing you can relax like a cradle...”

“Not if you swing it so high. It shakes me up.”

“Well, I'll swing it low then. Are you relaxed?”

“I'm relaxed enough. As much as necessary.”

“No, you're not. Your nerves are all tied up.”

“You make me nervous.”

“Just swinging with you?”

“Not just that.”

“What else then?”

“All them questions you asked me about the fire." 

“I only inquired about your husband — about his leaving the house after supper.”

“Why should I have to explain why he left the house. Besides, I did. I think I explained that to you.”

“You said that he left the house before the fire broke out.”

“What about it?”

“Why did he leave the house?”

“I explained that to you.”

“What was the explanation? I forgot it.”

Rey’s face is beaded with sweat. To save her life she can't think, can't think at all! Just to gain a moment, “Oh, you're talking about my husband?”

“That's who I'm talking about.”

“How should I know!!!”

“You mean where he went after supper.”

“Yes!! How should I know where he went.”

“I thought you said you explained that to me.”

“I did! I explained it to you!”

“Well, if you don't know, how could you explain it to me?”

“There's no reason why I should explain things to you.”

“Then just relax.”

They swing. 

“As I was saying, that was a lovely remark your husband made.”

“What remark did he make?”

“The good neighbor policy. I see what he means by that now.”

“He was talking about the President's speech.”

“I think he was talking about something closer to home. You _do me_ a good turn and I'll _do you_ one. That was the way he put it.” Delicately he removes a little piece of lint from her. “There now!”

“Thanks,” she says nervously.

“There's a lot of fine cotton lint floating around in the air.”

“I know there is. It irritates my sinus.”

“Well, you're a delicate woman.”

“Delicate? Me? Oh no. I'm a good-size woman.”

“There's a lot of you, but every bit of you is delicate. Choice. Delectable, I might say.”

“Huh?”

Solo runs his finger lightly over her skin. “You're fine fibered. And smooth. And soft.”

“Our conversation is certainly taking a personal turn!”

“Yes! You make me think of cotton.” Still caressing her arm another moment. “No! No fabric, no kind of cloth, not even satin or silk cloth, or no kind of fiber, not even cotton fiber has the ab-so-lute delicacy of your skin.”

“Well! Should I say thanks or something?”

“No, just smile, Mrs. Snoke. You have an attractive smile. Dimples!!”

“No...”

“Yes, you have! Smile, Mrs. Snoke! Come on! Smile!”

Rey averts her face, smiles helplessly. 

“There now. See? You've got them!” 

Delicately, he touches one of the indentations in her cheek.

“Please don't touch me. I don't like to be touched.”

“Then why do you giggle?”

“Can't help it. You make me feel kind of hysterical, Mr. Solo... Mr. Solo...”

“Yes?”

A different attack, more feminine, pleading, “I hope you don't think that Archie Lee was mixed up in that fire. I swear to goodness he never left the front porch. I remember it perfectly now. We just set here on the swing till the fire broke out and then we drove into town.”

“To celebrate!”

“No, no, no!”

“Twenty-seven wagons full of cotton's a pretty big piece of business to fall into your lap like a gift from the gods, Mrs. Snoke.”

“I thought you said we would drop the subject.”

“You brought it up that time.”

“Well, please don't try to mix me up anymore, I swear to goodness the fire had already broke out when he got back.”

“That's not what you told me a moment ago.”

“You got me all twisted up. We went in town. The fire broke out and we didn't know about it.”

“I thought you said it irritated your sinus.”

“Oh my God, you sure put words in my mouth. Maybe I'd better make us some lemonade.”

She starts to get up. Solo pulls her down. 

“What did you do that for?”

“I don't want to be deprived of your company yet.”

“Mr. Solo, you're getting awfully familiar.”

“Haven't you got any fun-loving spirit about you?”

“This isn't fun.”

“Then why do you giggle?”

“I'm ticklish!”

“Ticklish!”

“Yes, quit switching me, will you?”

“I'm just shooing the flies off.”

“They don't hurt nothing. And would you mind moving your arm?”

“Don't be so skittish! Alright! I'll get up then! Go on.”

She tries. “I feel so weak.” She pulls herself away from him. “Oh! My head's so buzzy.”

“Fuzzy?”

“Fuzzy and buzzy. My head's swinging around. It's that swinging... Is something on my arm?”

“No.”

“Then what are you brushing?”

“Sweat off. Let me wipe it...” He brushes her arm with his handkerchief. 

She laughs weakly. “No, please don't. It feels funny.”

“How does it feel?”

“Funny! All up and down. You cut it out now. If you don't cut it out I'm going to call.”

“Call who?”

“Temiri who's cuttin’ the grass across the road.”

“Go on. Call then.”

“Hey!” Her voice is faint, weak. “Hey, Temiri, Temiri!”

“Can't you call any louder?”

“I feel so funny! What's the matter with me?”

“You're just relaxing. You're big. There's a lot of you and it's all relaxing! So give in. Stop getting yourself all excited.”

“I'm not — but you...”

“I!???”

“Yes. You. Suspicions. The ideas you have about my husband... suspicions.”

“Suspicions? Such as...”

“Such as he burnt your gin down.”

“Well?”

“He didn't.”

“Didn't he?”

“I'm going inside. I'm going in the house.” She starts in. He follows close beside her. 

“But you're afraid of the house! Do you believe in ghosts, Mrs. Snoke? I do. I believe in the presence of evil spirits.”

“What evil spirits you talking about now?”

“Spirits of violence — and cunning — malevolence — cruelty — treachery — destruction...”

“Oh, them's just human characteristics.”

“They're evil spirits that haunt the human heart and take possession of it, and spread from one human heart to another human heart the way that a fire goes springing from leaf to leaf and branch to branch in a tree till a forest is all aflame with it — the birds take flight — the wild things are suffocated... everything green and beautiful is destroyed...”

“You have got fire on the brain.”

“I see it as more than it seems to be on the surface. I saw it last night as an explosion of those evil spirits that haunt the human heart — I fought it! I ran into it, beating it, stamping it, shouting the curse of God at it! They dragged me out, suffocating. I was defeated! When I came to, lying on the ground — the fire had won the battle, and all around was a ring of human figures! The fire lit their faces! I looked up. And they were illuminated! Their eyes, their teeth were SHINING!! SEE! LIKE THIS!” 

He twists his face into a grotesque grimace of pleasure. He holds her. They have arrived at the door to the interior of the house. 

“Yeah! Like this! Like this!” He thrusts his grimacing face at her. She springs back, frightened. 

“Hey! Please! Don't do that! Don't scare me!”

“The faces I saw — were grinning! Then I knew! I knew the fire was not accidental!” He holds her fast at the door. 

She utters, weakly, “Not accidental?”

“No, it was not accidental! It was an expression, a manifestation of the human will to _destroy.”_

“I wouldn't — feel that way — about it...”

“I do! I do! And so I say I believe in ghosts, in haunted places, places haunted by the people that occupy them with hearts overrun by demons of hate and destruction. I believe this place, this house is haunted... What's the matter?”

She is now thoroughly shaken. “I don't know...”

“You're scared to enter the house, is that the trouble?”

“Maz. Maz!!” No answer. “That old woman can't hear a thing on a-purpose.”

“There's no question about it. This place is haunted.”

“I’m getting — I’m getting so thirsty, so hot and thirsty!”

“Then why don't you treat yourself to a drink of cold water?”

“I — I thought I might make us a — pitcher of — cold lemonade.” For some reason, Rey doesn't want to enter the front door and she starts around the porch away from him. A board cracks under her weight. She screams, staggers. Solo rushes to her and seizes her sinewy arm, placing an arm behind her. She giggles weakly, but for the first time accepting his help. “The place is — collapsing right underneath me!”

“You're trembling, Mrs. Snoke, shaking all over!”

“Your — your hands are so —hot — I don't think I ever felt hands as hot as your hands, they're — why they're like a couple of plates — took right out of — the oven!”

“Burn, do they?”

“Yeah, they — _do,_ they burn — me...”

“The idea of lemonade is very attractive. I would be glad to help you squeeze the lemons.” He tightens the pressure of his hands.

“I know you would! I mean — thanks, but — I can do it myself.”

“You don't want my assistance, Mrs. Snoke?”

“Naw, it ain't necessary...”

“But then you would have to go into the house alone and the house is haunted! I better go in with you!”

“...No, it ain't necessary!” She is panting.

“You want me to stay on the porch?”

“Yeh, you stay on the porch!”

“Why shouldn't I come inside?”

“No reason, just — just...!” She giggles weakly. “You stay out here while I make the lemonade and...”

“Alright. Go on, Mrs. Snoke...”

“You stay out here...”

He doesn't answer. She stares at him, not moving. 

“Now what's the matter now? Why don't you go in?”

“I don't think I better. I think I will go across the road to the gin. They got a water cooler...”

“The water cooler's for people like Poe and Finn. A lady, a white lady like you, the wife of the big white boss, would place herself in the same undignified position as myself if she went over the road to drink with the hands! They might get notions about her! Unwholesome ideas! The sight of her soft white flesh, so smooth and abundant, might inflame their — natures...”

“Oh, vicious tongues, ignore ‘em, ignore ‘em completely!! I’d never let my Maz leave. I need her to be around with Archie Lee tryin’ to fo’ce me to have — well, you know — If that man laid a hand on me, if he tried to, Maz would proteck me from him, like she would you if you got too familiar. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!”

Solo smiles, satisfied with her reaction. To an outsider such as himself, he can’t believe it — her spirit really impresses him. “See? You’re a decent human being. You’re just uneducated, not ignorant like _them._ The former can be easily remedied. All’s you need is a teacher.”

“You!” Suddenly, Rey sees something off and...

Temiri coming down the road. He pushes a lawnmower. Behind him can be seen Snoke’s gin, wording. 

Rey past Solo in the direction of Temiri the lawnmower boy, runs unsteadily as if she were drunk, across the unkempt lawn and out into the shimmering brilliance of the road. “Temiri! Temiri! I want you to cut my grass.”

“Can't now, ma'am.”

“Yes, you can.”

“I got a job cuttin' grass across Naboo Bayou.”

“You cut grass here. PLEASE.” Her intensity frightens the boy. 

“Yes, ma'am, later.”

“NO! NOW! RIGHT NOW! — I’ll pay you five dollars extra...”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“I'll pay you five dollars extra... but now.”

Scared to death, “Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am.”

“And work close to the house. Hear! Speak up. Do you hear...?”

“Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am.”

Rey sees...

Solo, as he comes into the picture, she retreats, walking backwards. Then there is a hoot from the gin. The sound from the gin suddenly stops. This calls her attention to the gin and she starts in that direction. 

“Kid.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Here's that five dollars the lady was mentioning. Plus five more.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Only she don't want you to cut the grass.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So you go on like you were. Understand?”

“Oh, yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” The boy, now completely bewildered, goes on, as he was.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Artwork by @ballerosaga on Tumblr.

Something is wrong. The men, including Dameron and Finn, are gathered around a large piece of machinery. There is the characteristic debate as to what is wrong, opinions differing. 

Onto this rather hectic group runs Rey. Snoke turns on her viciously. “What’re you doin' here, have you gone crazy??”

“I want to tell you something! You big slob.”

This is just a little more than a desperate and harassed Snoke can bear. He suddenly comes across and smacks Rey. Good and hard! “I told you never, never, never, to cross that road to this cotton gin.”

Solo has entered and seen the action. 

Snoke notices Solo. “... this cotton gin when coloreds are working here.”

“You left me... you know what you left with me over there...”

Snoke’s eye wanders over to Solo and Rey sees him and clams up. 

Solo now officially enters the scene. “How's progress, Mr. Snoke?”

“Fine! Great!”

“Personally, I can't hear the gin at all.”

Rey, full of disgust, shouts, “Big Shot!” And she exits. 

“What's holding up?”

“Nothing...”

“Poe! Finn!” Solo’s own foremen step forward. “His saw-cylinder is busted,” says Dameron.

“It figures. I inspected your equipment, Snoke, before I put in my own and I put up my own cotton gin because this equipment was rotten, was rotten, and still is rotten. Now it's quarter past two by my watch and I counted twenty-three fully loaded wagons still out on your runway. And if you can't move those wagons any faster...”

“Now don't go into any hysterics. You Italians are prone to get too excited...”

“Never mind about we Italians. You better get yourself a new saw-cylinder and get this contraption running again. And if you can't get one in D’Qar, you better go to Utapau, and if you can't get one in Utapau, you better go to Dagobah, and if you can't get one in Dagobah, keep going to Sullust. Now get on your horse.”

“Now listen to me, Solo—"

“One more crack out of you, I'm going to haul across the river. I said get on your horse.”

Snoke hesitates. Then decides he must swallow this humiliation. There’s nothing else for him to do under the circumstances. He exits. 

Solo calls Dameron and Finn over close. Sotto voce, “I got a saw-cylinder in our commissary. Go get it and, Finn, you put it in. Get this thing running. He ain't gonna get one in D’Qar and if he goes to Dagobah — well, don't wait for him.” And he exits. 

Snoke, in his Chevy, nearly runs Rey over. 

“Archie Lee! Archie Lee! Archie Lee!” She stumbles to her knees. She's sobbing. She rests a moment in the tall grass. 

Solo runs up to her and stoops down to help her. 

“Le' me go. Le' me go.” She gets up and moves away from him towards her.

Maz comes out of the house all dressed up.

“Maz.” Maz rushes past her. “Maz!! Where are you going?”

“I have to see a sick friend at the county hospital.” And she is gone. Solo has caught up to Rey again.

“You might as well shout at the moon as that old woman.”

“You didn't want her to go??”

“She's got no business leaving me here alone.”

“It makes you uneasy to be alone here with me.”

“I think she just pretended not to hear me. She has a passion for chocolate candy and she watches the newspapers like a hawk to see if anybody she knows is registered at the county hospital.”

“Hospital...?”

“They give candy to patients at the county hospital, friends and relations send them flowers and candy and Maz calls on them and eats up their chocolate candy.”

Solo explodes with laughter. 

“One time an old lady friend of Maz was dying at the county hospital and Maz went over and ate up a two-pound box of chocolate cherries while the old lady was dying, finished it all! Hahahahaha, while the old lady was dying.”

They're both laughing together. 

“I like ole people — they're crazy...”

They both laugh together...

“Mrs. Snoke... May I ask you something? Of a personal nature?”

“What?”

“Are you really married to Mr. Snoke?”

“Mr. Solo, that's a personal question.”

“All questions are more or less personal, Mrs. Snoke.”

“Well, when I married I wasn't ready for marriage. I was still eighteen, but my daddy was practically on his deathbed and wanted to see me took care of before he died. Well, ole Archie Lee had been hanging around like a sick dog for quite some time and... the boys are a sorry lot around here. Ask you to the movies and take you to the old rock quarry instead. You have to get out of the car and throw rocks at ‘em, oh, I've had some experiences with boys that would curl your hair if I told you — some — experiences which I've had with boys!! But Archie Lee Snoke was an older fellow and in those days, well, his business was better. You hadn't put up that cotton gin of yours and Archie Lee was ginning out a lot of cotton. You remember?”

“Yes, I remember...”

“Well, I told my daddy I wasn't ready for marriage and my daddy told Archie Lee that I wasn't ready for it and he promised my daddy he'd wait till I was ready.”

“Then the marriage was postponed?”

“Not the wedding, no, we had the wedding, my daddy gave me away...”

“But you said that Snoke waited?”

“Yes, after the wedding... he waited.”

“For what?”

“For me to be ready for marriage.”

“How long did he have to wait?”

“Oh, he's still waiting! Of course, we had an agreement that... well... I mean I told him that I'd be ready on my twentieth birthday — I mean ready or not...”

“And that's tomorrow?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And are you... will you — be ready?”

“That all depends.”

“What on?”

“Whether or not the furniture comes back — I guess...”

“Your husband sweats more than any man I know and now I understand why!!”

There is a pause. They look at each other. Then Rey looks away. Then with a sudden access of energy she enters the house, slams the screen door in his face and latches it. 

_“There now! You wait out here! You just wait out here!”_

Solo grins at the screen door. “Yes, ma'am. I’ll wait.”

Rey turns from the screen door to the porch and stumbles along the vast and shadowy hall towards the dim light of the kitchen. As soon as she disappears, Solo is seen through the screen door. He jerks out a pocketknife and rips a hole in the screen. 

Rey calls anxiously, out of sight, from the kitchen, “What's that?”

Solo whistles loudly and casually on the porch. He now slips his fingers through the hole and lifts the latch.

The kitchen is large, old-fashioned room with antiquated, but very capacious, equipment — large icebox, large sinks and draining boards, large stove converted to gas. 

Rey stands in the middle of the floor with an apprehensive expression, but as Solo continues whistling on the porch, her usual placidity returns. She notices a kettle of greens on the stove. “Silly old thing — forgot to light the stove.”

She opens the icebox for lemons. “Git me a Frigidaire one of these days.” The pan under the icebox has overflowed and is swamping the floor. “Got to empty that pan.” She pulls it from under refrigerator with a grunt. A sound catches her ear, a sharp, slapping sound. She looks up anxiously, but the sound is not repeated. She takes out the lemons, leaves the icebox door hanging open. All her movements are fumbling and weak. She keeps rubbing her perspiring hands on her hips. She starts to cut a lemon, the knife slips and cuts her finger. She looks at the finger. It looks alright at first, then a drop of blood appears. She whimpers a little. The blood increases. She begins to cry like a baby. 

She makes a vague, anxious movement. Again the slapping sound followed by a soft human sound like a chuckle. She looks that way. Cocks her head. But the sound is not repeated. Still squeezing the cut finger she begins to wander toward the front of the house. 

Rey wanders through the house.

She passes through a bare huge room with a dusty chandelier. It was the dining room when the house belonged to the old plantation owners. She whimpers under her breath, squeezing the bleeding finger. Now the blood is running down the hand to the wrist and down the wrist to the forearm and trickling into the soft hollow of her elbow. She groans and whimpers at the sight of the great flight of stairs, but starts up them. 

Halfway up, at the landing, she hears the slapping sound again and the faun-like mocking laughter. She stops there and waits and listens — but the sound isn’t immediately repeated, so she goes on up. 

She goes into the bathroom and starts to bandage her cut finger. 

Solo is grinning up at the staircase. He slaps the banisters viciously with his whip, then chuckles. 

He strolls into the kitchen, sees the icebox door hanging open. Helps himself to the remains of a chicken, tearing it apart and gnawing the meat off it. He notices lemons and bloodspots — laughs. “Trail o’ blood! Ha ha!”

He empties the flooded ice-fan over dirty dishes in sink. “Filth! Disgusting!”

He slaps the wall with the whip and laughs. 

Rey wanders in from the bathroom. The finger is clumsily bandaged now, and she wanders across the room and examines herself in the mirror. 

“Look at me! Big mess...”

There are dark stains of sweat on the watermelon pink dress. She lazily starts to remove it. Hears the slapping sound and laugh closer. Pauses, her mouth hanging open. Fumbling attempt to lock the door. Key slips from her weak, nerveless fingers. She stoops, grunting, to pick it up. 

Solo is squeezing lemons and hurling the rinds savagely away. He finds a gin bottle and sloshes gin into a pitcher. Takes an ice pick and chops off big hunk of ice. He seems to enjoy all these physical activities, grins tightly, exposing his teeth. Sticks the ice pick into the wall as if he were stabbing an enemy. Holds the pitcher over his head whirling it rapidly so the drink sloshes over and ice rattles loudly, liquid running down his bare pale muscular arm. He drinks out of the pitcher. 

Rey is in a damp slip, rooting in the closet for a fresh one. She hears ice rattling in the pitcher. Pauses. Cocks head, listening apprehensively. Makes sure the door is locked.

Her slip hangs half off one great globular breast, gleaming with sweat. She listens intently. 

Solo is softly climbing the stairs. He wanders into the rooms across the hall from the bedroom — then into the child’s nursery —

Never used. Hobby horse, small fenced bed, Mother Goose pictures on the wall. He sits astride a wooden horse, lashes its rump with the whip and rocks on it. 

Rey springs up from the floor.

Rey unlocks the door and peers anxiously into the hall. The noise stops. “Archie Lee! Is that you?”

Solo (out of sight) gives a soft wolf-whistle.

“Who's that? Who's in there?” She crosses the hall into the nursery. 

Solo slips into the next room as Rey enters. Nervously, “Hey! What's goin’ on?”

Whip slap and soft mocking laughter, barely audible. 

“Mr. Solo? Are you in that room?” She crosses fearfully and enters next room, Solo slipping out just before her entrance. Now she is really frightened. 

Rey enters the empty room adjoining the nursery. She enters fearfully. “You! Git outa my house! You got no right to come in! Where are you?”

The door to the hall is locked. She hears the key turn in the lock. Gasps. Pounds door. Rushes back panting into the nursery.

She rushes in. “Mr. Solo, stop playing hide-and-seek!”

The soft mocking laughter comes from the hall. 

“I know it's you! You're making me very nervous! Mr. Solo!! Mr. Solo... Mr. Solo...”

With each call she creeps forward a few steps. All of a sudden he grabs her by the waist, lets out a shriek. She draws a out breath, jumps —

At this point the scene turns into a wild romp of children. She shrieks with laughter. He howls, shouts. She shrieks with terror. She giggles hysterically, running into the hall and starting down the steps. He leaps upon the banister and slides to the foot of the stairs. She turns on the stairs and runs through various rooms slamming doors, giggling hysterically as she runs. A spirit of abandon enters the flight and the pursuit. As he follows her into the bedroom, she throws a pillow at him. He does a comic pratfall, embracing the pillow.

She shrieks with laughter. He lunges toward her, throwing the pillow at her fugitive figure. She is about to run downstairs, but he blocks the way. She screams and takes the steps to the attic. 

Dusty late afternoon beams of light through tiny peaked windows in gables and a jumble of discarded things that have the poetry of things once lived with by the no-longer living. 

Rey doesn't stop to observe all this. She probably didn't even expect to find herself in an attic. She rushes in, slams the door, discovers a rusty bolt and bolts it just as Solo arrives at the door. 

Her panting laughter expires as he pushes the door. She suddenly realizes the full import of her situation; gasps and backs away. 

“Open Sesame!!”

Rey, in a low, serious voice, “The game is over, I've quit.”

“That's not fair, you've got to keep playing hide-and-seek till you're it.”

“Mr. Solo, will you please go back downstairs so I can unlock the door of this attic and come out — because the floor is weak... I don't want to fall through. It's crumbling under my feet. I had no idea — I never been up here before! — it was in such a weakened condition.” There is something appealing in her soft, pleasing voice. 

Solo whispers, mouth to crack, “I wouldn't dream of leaving you alone in a falling down attic any more than you'd dream of eatin' a nut a man had cracked in his mouth. Don't you realize that??”

With sudden gathering panic, “Mr. Solo! I got to get out of here. Quick! Go! Go! — down! Quick, please!”

“I can hear that old floor giving away fast...”

“So can I, and I’m _on_ it.”

“Shall I call the fire department to come here with a net to catch you when you fall through?”

“Wouldn't be time. No! Go! — then I can unlock the—”

“No, I don't suppose they'd get here on time or if they did the net would be rotten as those fire hoses last night when they came to put out the fire that burned down my gin!”

Suddenly, a piece of plaster fails beneath her feet. The rotten laths are exposed. She scrambles to another place, which is — or seems — equally shaky. She screams. 

“Are you being attacked by a ghost in there?”

“Please be kind! Go away!”

“Why don't you unlock the door so I can come to your rescue?”

“I — can't because...”

“Huh? Huh?”

Rey whispers, “YOU.”

Solo shoves the door just a little with his shoulder. The bolt is not strong. 

“You... so! _Scare_ me!”

“Scared of _me??”_

“Yeah, scared of you and your — _whip.”_

“Why're you scared of my whip? Huh? Do you think I might whip you? Huh? Scared I might whip you with it an’—” He slaps his boots regularly with the riding crop. “— leave red marks on your — body, on your — freckled, warm, olive, silk — skin? Is that why're scared, Mrs. Snoke?”

A murmur from her. 

“You want me to go away — with my whip??”

Another murmur. 

“Alright. Tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna slip pencil and paper under this door and all I want is your signature on the paper...”

“What paper?”

“I guess that you would call it an affidavit, legally stating that Snoke burned down the First Order Gin...”

Pause.

“Okay?”

“Mr. Solo, this whole floor's about to collapse under me!”

“What do you say?”

“Just leave the paper, leave it right out there and I’ll sign it and send it to you, I'll...”

“Mrs. Snoke, I am a Sicilian. They're an old race of people, an ancient race, and ancient races aren't trustful races by nature. I've got to have the signed paper now. Otherwise I'm going to break this door down. Do you hear me?”

A pause.

“Do you hear me?”

Silence.

Whimpering, sobbing. 

“I gather you don't believe me.”

Suddenly, with a single eloquent gesture of his whole body he has pushed the door open and on the other side. Rey, in absolute panic, runs, runs away from the threatening man and whip and towards the darkest corner of the attic. A few steps, however, and the floor really gives way. There is a shower of plaster, a rising cloud of plaster dust.

The dust settles to reveal her, precariously perched across a beam...

Solo calmly lights a cigarette. “Now you're either going to agree to sign this thing, or I'm going to come out there after you and my additional weight will make the whole floor you know what!”

“OOOOOOH! What am I gonna do?”

“Do what I tell you.” He gingerly steps on a place... A trickle of plaster. “Awful bad shape.” He reaches and picks up a 1x3 about twelve feet long. On the end of it he puts a pencil and piece of paper. 

“O-o-o-o-o-h!”

“What?” Suddenly, he stamps on the plaster. There is a big fall of plaster; Rey screams. 

“Alright, alright. — Alright... Hurry! Hurry!”

“Hurry what?”

“I'll do whatever you want — only hurry!!”

“Here it comes...” He reaches out his little piece of paper and pencil, balanced on the 1x3. She grabs it, scribbles her name in frantic haste, panting, and puts the piece of paper back, fixing it on a nail on the end of the 1x3, and Solo pulls it back. He looks at her signature and throws back his head in a sudden wild laugh. “Thank you. You may come out now.”

“Not till I hear you! Going down those stairs...”

He grins and starts down, “Hear me? Hear my descending footsteps on the stairs...” Solo straddles the long spiraled banister and slides all the way down to the landing at the bottom with a leap that starts another minor cascade. 

Rey utters a little cry and comes out of the attic door. Silence. Putt-putt-putt-putt of the gin. She leans over the stairwell and looks straight down into the grinning face of Solo. He gives her a quick, grinning nod and salute. 

“Okay, you're ‘Home free’! And so am I! Bye-bye!”

“Where are you going??

“Back to my little gray Quonset home in the West! For a peaceful siesta...”

“Wait, please! — I want to — l —” She starts to come running down the stairs, her hair wild, panting, sweating, smeared with attic dust. Then halfway down she stops... 

Now stealing towards him, “I want to...” But she can't remember what she "wants to." He waits quizzically with his cocky grin for her to complete her sentence but she doesn't. Instead she looks up and down him and her eyelids flutter as if the image could not be quietly contained. He nods as if in agreement to something stated. He chuckles and then turns on his heels and starts briskly for the porch. She calls after him... “Was that all you wanted...”

He turns and looks at her. 

“Me to confess that Archie Lee burnt down your gin?”

“What else did you imagine?”

The windy afternoon has tossed a cloud over the sun, now declining. She isn’t looking into his face. He gives a short quick laugh and kisses her roughly on the lips, holding her head with one hand and slapping her ample rump with the riding crop. She pulls away and gasps.

“Why... why, Mr. Solo!”

He tucks the signed paper in his back pocket for safer keeping. He advances. “No more children’s games, Mrs. Snoke...”

She gasps and backs upstairs into the nursery and tries to slam the door.

Another soft breathless outcry as he shoves the door open: She backs into the room containing the crib on which light has been building, somewhere between profane and sacred, giving it the aspect of a pagan altar. Solo springs into the room, thrusting the door wide open. No longer capable of an outcry, nor breathing, she backs into the side of the crib. Slows with confidence, Solo advances to her, removing his shirt. The light now concentrated on their faces and the sacramental crib. The girl is paralyzed, rigid. Solo rips open her blouse and grips her hands that clutch the crib, forcing them slowly up into an almost cruciform position, his hard body pressed to hers. No longer capable of an outcry, she draws back, panting breaths. All is dimmed out, now, but the altar-place of the crib, a religiously rich light on it. His head sinks between her exposed breasts.

She screams wildly, slaps him hard across the face. He stands shocked a moment, his rage surging within him, smashing through every safety valve he's acquired in his life. He shoves her backwards savagely across the crib.

She hits the mattress like a ragdoll. He looks at her curiously, bends over her — she sucker-punches him with everything she's got! He growls in rage and grabs her hands as they flail about his face. He squeezes her fingers back while the tears stream down her cheeks and her mouth forms a silent "ow"! She bares her teeth angrily and he sucks at her mouth, biting and kissing her in a fever pitch.

She kicks at him violently, hot tears streaming down her cheeks. He jams his leg between hers, rubs it firmly against her bottom. She struggles helplessly against him as he covers her rosebud breasts, her toned stomach, her juicy thighs with his lips. Quick breaths escape from her — her breathing begins to race...

He snaps her panties in two, pulls them from between her legs. She spreads herself wide as he releases his pants. She squeezes his buttocks, pulls him toward her — but Solo resists her coldly, regards her with contempt. Suddenly he flips her onto her stomach, forces her to stand painfully on her knees. He rubs his hand between her buttocks, then thrusts into her roughly, driving himself to the very depths of her...

...but she stifles a cry, arches her back, and meets his thrusts fiercely, moving quicker and quicker, banging her buttocks against his thighs again and again. She's drawing from him now, turning the humiliation around, obtaining all that she needs and desires. He's powerless — her thrusts set the pace. She rises, Solo still inside her and tugs on him rapidly, causing him to ejaculate suddenly, drawing from him a sharp and sudden cry...


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art by @ballerosaga on Tumblr.

Bazine’s singing can be heard from the Niima Cafe in the early evening. The nursery is illuminated. Solo is curled up in the crib stroking Rey who sits on the floor beside the crib. Their post-coital love play underscored by the music. 

He caresses her casually as he would a pet cat. But Solo doesn’t notice. Lips pressed against her temple, dark eyes streaming, he's lost to himself now, loosening all that's within him, cleansing himself of his rage, hatred and pain… “Babydoll...”

A pause as Bazine sings. It's a ballad, a poem really, a plea for understanding, love, and survival. It's a testament, a pact if one will, between the singer and others…

“Don’t call me that.”

“That’s what your husband calls you.”

Rey is near crying. Every moment she has shared with him is expressed in this song, and the effect on her is unnerving. Her heart leaps to him in a way she never thought possible. But she lets it go willingly, as the words draw her in, seducing her somehow, making her free… as if the music, the words, all that he has experienced and understood, is purging what is confused and ugly within herself, leaving her with an understanding and joy that burns in her womb like soft fire. A smile springs to her lips as tears continue to form, and she finds herself moving closer… Bazine’s song concludes.

“That’s mainly why I don’t like it. That ole stinker treats me like a — _thing!”_

“You don’t like being called by a little name of endearment?”

“Not one that Archie Lee calls me.”

“Well, there’s a good many names I’ve heard used around here.”

“Such as what?”

“Precious, honey-darlin’, sweetie-pie — pussy-pie...”

“You’re making fun of me, now. I’ve lost your respect, haven’t I?”

Dreamily, with deep satisfaction, he murmurs, “Not a bit, you’ve gained it, in exchange for that piece of paper that will make it plain as day even to blindfolded justice that Archie Lee Snoke burnt down the First Order Plantation.”

“That’s all you wanted from me?”

“It’s certainly not all that I got, eh, _Bambina? Bambina mia.”_

“Bam _what,_ what’s that you called me?”

 _“Bambina mia’s_ Italian for my baby. Do you like it?”

“We-ell, it’s... it’s...”

“More appropriate, now? In private?”

“—How’m I gonna explain these marks that you’ve put on me?”

“Don’t explain them. Just put some cold cream and some talcum on them before you go down to supper.”

He rises and stretches sensually and crosses to a window. His sculptural torso is framed by moonlight.

The cotton-picking moon is out and it’s full. Hound dogs are baying at it. And Snoke is somewhere on the road from Dagobah.

He turns toward her.

“—Are you tired, _bambina?”_

“No, not a bit. I feel real relaxed... Once my daddy, when my daddy was livin’, he took me to this doctor in town and tole the doctor I was suffering’ from — what was it? Oh, yais, pernicious anemia... yeah.”

“A vitality crisis?”

“Hmmm-Mmmm. But the doctor said, ‘Mr. Jakku, your daughter is at a stage at her life when she’s just waitin’ for somethin’ to stimulate her nature,’” she pauses thoughtfully, “Daddy didn’t like that.”

Solo laughs softly. “What do you think you was waitin’ for, _Bambina?”_

Pause.

“— _You...”_

His knees go weak. Jukebox music comes from Plutt’s place in the near distance.

“Are we gonna have more afternoons like this?”

Solo imitates her drawl, “Wouldn’t surprise me a-tall—”

“You didn’ answer my question.”

She crosses to him. He draws her into his arms, thrusts his pelvis against hers, grinding slowly, achingly.

“‘Time on my hands, you in my arms, Nothin’ but love in vi-iiew’  
Isn’t that how that song goes?”

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

Solo stands still. “This is a waiting country, but there’s plenty of time, oh, yes, we’ll have plenty of time, for making lemonade on hot afternoons, for making love and for—” He laughs into her hair. “‘Time on our hands’ — Oh, I think we’re going to have time, plenty of it. It will take time to construct a new gin at the First Order Plantation and till it is constructed and in operation I will be bringing my wagons of cotton to Snoke’s decrepit but still functioning gin.”

“You’re awful, I love it...”

They kiss. It holds for a moment, begins to build... Solo moving a hand to her breast, it continues for a moment, tweaking a stiffened nipple... Solo begins growing more passionate... and then suddenly, he pulls away. They settle into each other’s arms, Rey sighing.

“Listen. I suggest we prepare ourselves to receive your husband. How do you feel about that?”

“—Depressed!”

“No need to be.”

***

Snoke is at the counter of a supply store in Dagobah, bargaining with the clerk. “Godamighty man, I'm good for it.” He reaches for the part he has come for. It's wrapped and ready to go. 

“We have orders. No credit. Cash basis. Everything.”

“I warn you. I'll never come in this store again.”

“Sorry.”

“Look, I just happened to leave the place in my work clothes. My wallet ain't on me.”

“Cash only.”

Mr. Archie Snoke suddenly turns and leaves in complete disgust. 

Several hours later and he has driven back from Dagobah. He halts his motor with an exhausted grunt. He appears to have shrunk in size. He carries a sweat-drenched coat over his arm and the sweaty shirt clings to him. His chest heaves with unhealthy fast respiration, and he fingers the unbuttoned collar, as he takes in the situation: The gin is running again!!! — and without his O.K. — and how did they get the damned thing going again!!?? 

He walks in and passes Dameron and Finn.

“Hahaha! Looks like we're back in business.”

They offer him only the most fleeting glance. 

“Does, doesn't it,” says Dameron.

“You all must have done some mighty fast repairs.”

“No repairs — Finn put in a new saw-cylinder.”

“From where? Out of a cloud? Why I checked every supply outfit between Dagobah and Malastare and nobody's got a new saw-cylinder ready for installation before next Wednesday.”

Finn says tersely, “Boss had one at our place. I put it in.”

“How do you like that? How come I wasn't let in on this piece of information before I lit out of here on the wild-goose chase that just about killed me? Where is that wop Solo? I want to get some explanation of this.”

At this precise moment the whistle blows, announcing the end of the day and the gin machinery stops working. The black hands, who have been working as porters and mechanics, line up for pay. 

(Meantime...) 

“You seen the bossman, Norm?,” Finn asks a black worker, who shakes his head. 

Dameron and Finn notice Snoke looking at the line a little worried. 

“Don't worry. Solo is meeting the payroll for tonight,” says Dameron.

“Where is he?”

Finn turns to another black man. “Moose, you seen the boss?”

“No time lately, Capt'n.”

Snoke retreats from the gin uncertainly. 

Halfway across the road he hears laughter, evidently directed at him. His back stiffens. Something has happened, he feels, that has somehow made him the patsy of whatever occasion this is. 

Snoke, suspicious, angry, something violent and dangerous is growing up in his heart. He mutters to himself. Hears the laughter again. Curses.

Snoke enters the big front yard and stares at the house.

Silent. Not a move. Not a sound. 

Snoke noticed Solo’s discarded shirt. He picks it up and lifts his head and calls into the house. “Hey! Anybody living here? Anybody still living in this house?”

Rey, considerably disarrayed, in the upstairs nursery, has heard Snoke’s shout from below. 

“It's Archie Lee.”

Downstairs screen door slams. 

Solo laughs. “This might turn into a highly inflammable night in our lives! You greet him first.”

“Oh...”

“Don’t worry — I’ll accept his invitation to supper!”

There is a sudden shout from downstairs as if a cry of pain. 

Solo, before leaping out of the bedroom window, “Hey! Your wrapper!”

What Snoke sees is the debris of the ceiling. He looks up at the gaping hole in the roof over his head at the top of the stairwell and then down the stairs. Rey appears on the staircase in her flimsy silken wrapper. 

“What happened here?”

Rey doesn't answer. She stares at him with blank insolence. 

“Hunh?”

“I said what the hell happened here?”

“You mean that mess in the hall? The plaster broke in the attic.”

“How'd that — how'd that— happen?”

“How does anything happen? It just happened.”

She comes on lazily down, avoiding his look.

“Ain't I told you not to slop around here in a slip?”

She gives a faint indifferent shrug which enrages him; he senses something openly contemptuous, a change in her attitude towards him. He grabs her bare shoulder. 

“What's the matter with your skin? It looks all broke out.” He inspects the inflamed welts. “What's this?”

“What's what?”

“These marks on you?” 

“Mosquito bites, I scratched them… Lemme go.”

Snoke bellows, “Ain't I told you not to slop around here in a slip???!!!”

Maz, alarmed by the shout, appears in door to kitchen, crying out thin and high. “Almost ready, now, folks, almost ready!!”

She rushes back into the kitchen with her frightened cackle. There is a crash of china from the kitchen. 

“The breakage alone in that kitchen would ruin a well-to-do-man! Now you go up and git some decent clo'se on yuh an' come back down. Y'know theiy got a new bureau in Washington, D. C. It's called the U.W. Bureau. Y'know what U.W. stands for? It stands fo' useless women. They's secret plans on foot to round 'em all up and shoot 'em. Hahahaha!”

“How about men that's destructive? Don't they have secret plans to round up men that's destructive and shoot them too?”

“What destructive men you talkin’ about?”

“Men that blow things up and burn things down because they're too evil and stupid to git along otherwise. Because fair competition is too much for 'em. So they turn criminal. Do things like arson. Willful destruction of property by fire...”

She steps out on the porch. Night sounds. A cool breeze tosses her damp curls. She sniffs the night air like a young horse...

The porch light, a milky globe patterned with dead insects, turns on directly over her head and Snoke comes up behind her and grips her bare shoulders, his face anxious, cunning. 

“Who said that to you? Where'd you git that from??”

“Turn that porch light off. There's men on the road can see me.”

“Who said _arson_ to you? Who spoke of willful destruction of… YOU never knew them words. Who SAID ‘em to yuh?”

“Sometimes, Big Shot, you don't seem to give me credit for much intelligence! I've been to school, in my life, and I’m a — magazine reader!”

She shake off his grip and starts down porch steps. There is a group of men on Theed Road. One of them gives a wolf-whistle. At once, Snoke charges down the steps and across the yard towards the road — crying out — 

_“Who gave that whistle??_ Which of you give a wolf-whistle at my wife?”

The group ignores him except for a light mocking laugh as they continue down road. Rey blandly smiles. 

The rattle of the cistern pump being vigorously exercised in the side yard. Snoke stales back up to the porch, winded, like an old hound.

“Men from the First Order _Plantation! White an’ black_ mixed! Headed fo' Naboo Bayou with frog gigs and rubber boots on! I just hope they turn downstream and trespass across my property! I just hope they dare to! I'll blast them out of the Bayou with a shotgun!”

“Small dogs have a loud bark.”

“Nobody's gonna insult no woman of _mine!”_

“You take a lot for granted when you say _mine._ This afternoon I come to you for protection. What did I _git? Slapped!_ And told to go home… I, for one, have got no sympathy for you, now or ever. An' the rasslin' match between us is over so let me _go!”_

“You're darn tootin' it's over. In just three hours the terms of the agreement will be settled for good.”

“Don't count on it. That agreement is canceled. Because it takes two sides to make an agreement, like an argument, and both sides got to live up to it completely. You didn't live up to yours. Stuck me in a house which is haunted and five complete sets of unpaid-for furniture was removed from it las' night, OOHH! I'm _free_ from my side of that bargain!”

 _“Sharp at midnight!_ We'll find out about that.”

“Too much has happened here lately...” 

She descends into the yard. Snoke eyes her figure. Sweating, licking his chops. 

“Well... my credit's wide open again!”

“So is the jailhouse door wide open for you if the truth comes out.”

“You threatenin’ me with — _blackmail??”_

“Somebody's drawin’ some cool well water from the pump back there.”

She starts back. He follows. The full frog-gigging moon emerges from a mackerel sky, and Solo is making his ablutions at the cistern pump with the zest and vigor of a man satisfied.

Rey, with unaccustomed hilarity, “HUFF AND PUFF AND BLOW THE HOUSE DOWN... HaHa!!”

Snoke stops dead in his tracks. 

“Him?! Still on the place?”

“Give me another drink of that sweet well water, will yuh, Mistuh Solo? You're the first person could draw it.”

Snoke advances, “YOU STILL HERE?”

“Archie Lee, Mr. Solo says he might not put up a new cotton gin, but let you gin cotton for him all the time, now. Ain't you pleased about that? Tomorrow he plans to come with lots more cotton, maybe another twenty-seven wagonloads. And while you're ginning it out, he'll have me entertain him, make lemonade for him. It's going to go on and on! Maybe even next fall.”

Solo, through the water, “Good neighbor policy in practice.” Having wetted himself down he now drinks from the gourd. “I love well water. It tastes as fresh as if it never was tasted before. Mrs. Snoke, would you care for some, too?”

“Why thank you, yes, I would.” There is a grace and sweetness and softness of speech about her, unknown before...

“Cooler nights have begun,” says Solo.

Snoke has been regarding the situation, with its various possibilities, and is far from content. “How long you been on the place?”

Solo drawls sensuously with eyes on the girl, “All this unusually long hot fall afternoon. I've imposed on your hospitality. You want some of this well water?”

Snoke, with a violent gesture of refusal, “Where you been here???”

“Taking a nap on your only remaining bed. The crib in the nursery with the slats let down. I had to curl up on it like a pretzel, but the fire last night deprived me of so much sleep that almost any flat surface was suitable for slumber.” He winks impertinently at Snoke, then turns to grin sweetly at Rey, wiping the drippings of well water from his throat. Then turns back to Snoke. “But there's something sad about it. Know what I mean?”

“Sad about what??”

“An unoccupied nursery in a house, and all the other rooms empty…”

“That's no problem of yours!”

“The good neighbor policy makes your problems mine — and vice versa…”

Maz’s violent and high and shrill, from the back steps, “SUPPER! READY! CHILDREN...” She staggers back in.

Now there’s a pause in which all three stand tense and silent about the water pump. Rey with her slow new smile speaks up first...

“You all didn't hear us called in to supper?”

Snoke turns to Solo, “You gonna eat here tonight?”

“Mrs. Snoke asked me to stay for supper but I told her I’d better get to hear the invitation from the head of the house before I'd feel free to accept it. So…. What do you say?”

A tense pause... then, with great difficulty, Snoke answers…. “Stay!.. fo' supper.”

“You'll have to take potluck,” says Rey.

“I wouldn't be putting you out?”

This is addressed to Rey, who smiles vaguely and starts toward the house, saying... “I better get into mu' clo'se...”

“Yeah... hunh...,” Snoke mutters.

They follow her sensuous departure with their eyes till she fades into the dusk.

“Did I understand you to say you wouldn't build a new gin but would leave your business to me?”

“If that's agreeable with you.”

Turning from his wife's back to Solo’s face, “I don't know yet, I'll have to consider the matter… Financing is involved such as — new equipment… Let's go in and eat now. I got a pain in my belly, I got a sort of heartburn...”

They enter the kitchen and then to the dining room. Snoke’s condition is almost shock. He can't quite get with the situation. He numbly figures that he'd better play it cool till the inner fog clears. But his instinct is murder. His cowardly caution focuses his malice on the old woman and the unsatisfactory supper she's prepared. 

“Hey! Hey! One more place at the table! Mr. Solo from the First Order Plantation is stayin' for supper.”

Maz, with a startled outcry, clutching her chest, says, “Oh — I had no idea that company was expected. Just let me — change the silver and...”

“Another place is all that's called for. Have you been here all day?”

“What was that, Snoke?”

“HAVE YOU BEEN IN THE HOUSE ALL AFTERNOON OR DID YOU LIGHT OUT TO THE COUNTY HOSPITAL TO EAT SOME CHOCOLATE CANDY????”

Maz gasps as if struck, then she cackles... “I — I — visited! — an old friend in a — coma!”

“Then you was out while I was.” Snoke turns to Solo — fiercely, “I work like the hammers of hell! I come home to find the attic floor has fell through, my wife bad-tempered, insulting! and a supper of hog slops —. Sit down, eat. I got to make a phone call.”

He crosses somewhat unsteadily into the hall and picks up the telephone as Rey descends the grand staircase and goes past him with face austerely averted. 

She is clad in a fresh silk sheath and is adjusting an earring as she passes through the hall. We go with her into dining room. 

“He's at the phone about something and if I was you, I wouldn't hang around long.”

“I think I've got the ace of spades in my pocket.” He pats where he's stashed the confession signed by Rey.

“Don't count on a law court. Justice is deaf and blind as that old woman pretends to be!”

Maz rushes out to cut roses for a vase to set on table.

“I'm advising you, go! — while he's on the phone.”

“I find you different this evening in some way.”

“Never mind, just go! Before he gits off the phone.”

“Suddenly grown up!”

Rey looks at him gratefully. “I feel cool and rested, for the first time in my life. I feel that way, rested and cool.”

A pause.

“Are you going or staying???”

They are close together by the table. Suddenly she catches her breath and flattens her body to his. Embracing. She reaches above her and pulls the beaded chain of the light bulb, plunging the room in dark. Solo’s hand is pinned in Rey’s lap in the embrace. Rey smiles, then guides Solo’s hand under the hemline of her skirt. Solo looks at her; she looks back, smiles, puts her head on his shoulder. Her eyes closing as — Solo’s hand moves gently under the hemline of her skirt, and — Rey feeling it; responding, and — her hands tightly gripping Solo’s forearm and holding his there — guiding him — her breath-rate increasing, her cheeks flushing, her eyes closing, she’s very near, and — an explosion and warm flood just as her body goes weightless; her body doubling over at the waist, spasming hard. It goes on for a while.

Archie Lee is on the phone. “A bunch of men from the First Order Plantation are out frog-giggin' on Naboo Bayou and I thought we all might join the party. How's about meeting at the Niima Cafe in half’n hour? With full equipment.”

Finished, Rey just stays down a moment; dazed, momentarily lost. She’s never experienced this before in her life.

She sits up; keeps her eyes straight ahead, vulnerable, unable to really look at Solo, and — Solo sees it; he gently moves to surround her in his arms. Rey slumps into him, a child now, totally unaware of Snoke, aware of only Solo’s reassurance, his protection. 

A few more indistinct words, Snoke hangs up. The light is switched back on in the dining room. Maz rushes in. “Roses! Poems of nature...”

Snoke enters from the hall. His agitation is steadily mounting. “Never mind poems of nature, just put food on th’ table!”

“If I'd only known that company was expected, I'd...” Her breathless voice expires as she scuttles about putting roses in a vase. “Only take a minute.”

“We ain't waitin’ no minute. Bring out the food...”

Rey smiles, rather scornfully, at Snoke bullying the old woman. 

“Is that what they call a Mona Lisa smile you got on your puss?”

“Don't pick on Maz...”

“Put some food on the table!!” Then muttering dangerously. “I'm going to have a talk with that old woman, right here tonight. She's outstayed her welcome.”

“What a pretty green wrapper you're wearing tonight, Mrs. Snoke.”

Rey smiles coyly. “Thank you, Mr. Solo.”

“There's so many shades of green. Which shade is that?”

“Just emerald green.”

“Emerald green, huh!,” sniffs Snoke.

“It brings out the hazel of your eyes.” 

Snoke screams, “Food! Food Immediately! This instant!”

She comes through door from the kitchen, holding a big plate of greens, which she sets on the table with great apprehension. They are not really cooked. Snoke stares at them. Greens, which are almost raw. Snoke swears under his breath.

“This wrapper was part of my trousseau, as a matter of fact. I got all my trousseau at London at various departments where my daddy was from. Big department stores on Oxford Street.” 

“WHAT IS THIS STUFF??!! GRASS??!!” 

“Greens! Don't you know greens when you see them?”

“This stuff is greens??!!”

Maz comes nervously from pantry. “Snoke dotes on greens, don't you, Snoke?”

“No, I don't.”

“You don't? You don't dote on greens?”

“I don't think I ever declared any terrible fondness for greens in your presence.”

“Well, somebody did.”

“Somebody probably did — sometime, somewhere, but that don't mean it was me!” He lurches back in his chair and half rises, swinging to face Solo — who has taken Rey’s hand under the table. Solo smiles blandly. 

“Sit back down, Big Shot, an’ eat your greens. Greens puts iron in the system,” snips Rey.

“I thought that Archie Lee doted on greens! — All those likes an' dislikes are hard to keep straight in your head,” says Maz, “But Archie Lee's easy to cook for. Jim's a complainer, oh, my, what a complainer Jim is, and Susie's household, they're nothing but complainers.”

_“Take this slop off th' table!!”_

Maz, terrified, “I'll — cook you some — Eggs Birmingham! — These greens didn' cook long enough. I played a fool trick with my stove. I forgot to light it! Ha ha! When I went out to the store — I had my greens on the stove. I thought I'd left 'em boilin'. But when I got home I discovered that my stove wasn't lighted.”

“Why do you say ‘my’ stove? Why is everything ‘my’?”

“Archie Lee, I believe you been drinkin'!”

“You keep out of this! Set down, Maz.”

“—Do what, Snoke?”

“Set down here. I want to ask you a question.”

Maz sits down slowly and stiffly, all atremble. 

“What sort of — plans have you made?”

“Plans, Snoke? What sort of plans do you mean?”

“Plans for the future!”

“I don't think this kind of discussion is necessary in front of company.”

“Mr. Snoke, when a man is feeling uncomfortable over something, it often happens that he takes out his annoyance on some completely innocent person just because he has to make somebody suffer.”

“You keep outta this, too. I'm askin' Maz a perfectly sensible question. Now, Maz. You been here since August and that's a mighty long stay. Now, it's my honest opinion that you're in need of a rest. You been cookin' around here and cookin' around there for how long now? How long have you been cookin’ around people's houses?”

Maz is barely able to speak. “I've helped out my — relatives, my — folks — whenever they — needed me to! I was always — _invited!_ Sometimes — _begged_ to come! When babies were expected or when somebody was sick, they called for Maz Kanata, and Maz Kanata was always — ready... Nobody ever had to — _put me — out!_ — If you — gentlemen will excuse me from the table — I will pack my things! If I hurry I'll catch the nine o'clock bus to—” 

She can't think “where to!” Solo seizes her hand, pushing back from the table. “Miss Maz Kanata. Wait. I'll drive you home.”

“—I don't! — have nowhere to! — go...”

“Yes, you do. I need someone to cook for me at my place. I'm tired of my own cooking and I am anxious to try those Eggs Birmingham you mentioned. Is it a bargain?”

“—Why, I—”

“Sure it's a bargain. Mr. Solo will be good to you, m’dear Maz, and he will even _pay_ you, and maybe — well — y'never can tell about things in the future...”

 _“I'll run pack my things!”_ She resumes reedy hymn in a breathless, cracked voice as she goes upstairs. 

“Anything else around here you wanta take with yuh, Solo?”

Solo looks around coolly as if considering the question. Rey utters a high, childish giggle.

“Well, is they? Anything else around here you wanta take away with yuh?”

Rey rises gaily. “Why, yaiss, Archie Lee. Mr. Solo noticed the house was overloaded with furniture and he would like us to loan him five complete sets of it to—”

Snoke seizes the neck of a whiskey bottle. “YOU SHUDDUP! I will git to you later.”

“If you ever git to me it sure is going to be _later,_ ha ha, _much_ later, ha ha!” She crosses to kitchen sink, arranging her kiss-me-quicks in the soap-splashed mirror, also regarding the two men behind her with bland satisfaction: her childish face, beaming, is distorted by the flawed glass. She sings and hums "Sweet and Lovely!” 

Snoke stands by the table, breathing heavy as a walrus in labor. He looks from one to the other. 

Solo coolly picks up a big kitchen knife and lops off a hunk of bread, then tosses the kitchen knife out of Snoke’s reach and then he dips the bread in the pot of greens. “My man Finn’s folks call this pot liquor.”

“I love pot liquor.”

“Me, too.”

Rey, dreamily, “— Crazy ‘bout pot liquor...”

She turns about and rests her hips against the sink. Snoke’s breathing is loud as a cotton gin, his face fiery. He takes swallow after swallow from the bottle. 

Solo devours bread. “Mm- _UMMM!”_

“Good?”

“Yes!—Good!”

“—That's good...”

BB-8 makes a slow stately entrance, pushing the door open wider with her fat hips and squawking peevishly at this slight inconvenience. 

Snoke wheels about violently and hurls the empty bottle at her. She flaps and squawks back out. Her distressed outcries are taken up by her sisters, who are sensibly roosting. 

Rey giggles. “Law! Ole BB-8 mighty near made it that time! Why, that old hen was comin' in like she'd been invited t’supper.” Her giggly voice expires as Snoke wheels back around and bellows. 

Snoke explodes volcanically. His violence gives him almost a Dostoevskian stature. It builds steadily as a virtual lunacy possesses him with realization of his hopeless position. _“OH HO HO HO HO!”_ He kicks the kitchen door shut. “Now you all listen to me! Quit giving looks back an’ forth an’ listen to me! Y'think I'm deaf, dumb an' blind or something, do yuh? You're _mistook,_ oh, brother, but you're much, much — _mistook!_ Ohhhh, I knooow! — I guess I look like a — I guess I look like a—” Panting, puffing pause; he reels a little, clutching the chair back.

Rey, in a insolently childish lisp, “What d'you guess you look like, Archie Lee? About t' tell us an’ then yuh quit fo' some—”

 _“Yeah, yeah, yeah!_ Some little innocent Babydoll of a wife not ready fo' marriage, oh, no, not yet ready for marriage but plenty ready t’ — Oh, I see how it's funny, I can see how it's funny, I see the funny side of it. _Oh ho ho ho ho!_ Yes, it sure is comic, comic as hell! But there's one little _teensy-eensy_ little — thing that you — _overlooked!_ I! Got _position!_ Yeah, yeah, _I_ got _position!_ Here in this county! Where I was bo'n an’ brought up! I hold a respected position, lifelong! — member of — Wait! Wait! — Babydoll...”

She had started to cross past him; he seizes her wrist. She wrenches free. Solo stirs and tenses slightly but doesn't rise or change his cool smile. 

“On my side’re friends, long-standin' bus'ness associates, an' social! See what I mean? You ain't got that advantage, have you, mister? Huh, mister? Ain't you a dago, or something, excuse me, I mean Eyetalian or something, here in Naboo County?”

“Snoke, I’m not a doctor, but I was a medical corpsman in the Navy and you've got a very unhealthy looking flush on your face right now which is almost purple as a—” He was going to say “baboon’s behind.”

Snoke bellows out, “ALL I GOT TO DO IS GIT ON THAT PHONE IN THE HALL!”

“And call an ambulance from the county hospital?”

“Hell, I don't even need t’ make a phone call! I can handle this situation _m'self_ — with legal protection that no one could—”

Solo, still coolly, “What situation do you mean, Snoke?”

“Situation which I come home to find here under my roof! Oh, I’m not such a marble-missing old fool! — I couldn't size it up! — I sized it up the moment I seen you was still on this place and _her!_ — with that _sly smile on her!”_ He takes a great swallow of liquor from the fresh bottle. “And _you_ with _yours_ on you! I know how to wipe off both of those sly—!”

He crosses to closet door. Rey utters a gasp and signals Solo to watch out. Solo rises calmly. 

“Snoke?” He speaks coolly, almost with a note of sympathy. “ _You_ know, and _I_ know, and I _know_ that you know that I _know!_ — That you set fire to my cotton gin last night. You burnt down the First Order Gin and I got in my pocket a signed affidavit, a paper, signed by a witness, whose testimony will even hold up in the law courts of Naboo County! — That's all I come here for and that's all I got... whatever else you suspect — well! — you're mistaken…. Isn't that so, Mrs. Snoke? Isn't your husband mistaken in thinking that I got anything out of this place but this signed affidavit which was the purpose of my all-afternoon call?”

She looks at him, angry, hurt. 

Snoke wheels about, panting. 

“Yes, I'm foreign but I'm not revengeful, Snoke, at least not more than is rightful.” He smiles sweetly. “—I think we got a workable good neighbor policy between us. It might work out, anyhow I think it deserves a try. Now as to the other side of the situation, which I don't have to mention. Well, all I can say is, a certain attraction — exists! Mutually, I believe! But nothing's been rushed. I needed a little shut-eye after last night's — excitement. I took a nap upstairs in the nursery crib with the slats let down to accommodate my fairly large frame, and I have faint recollection of being sung to by someone — a lullaby song that was — sweet ...,” his voice is low, caressing, “—and the touch of — cool fingers, but that's all, ab-so-lute-ly.”

“Y'think I'm gonna put up with this—?”

“Situation? You went to a whole lot of risk an’ trouble to get my business back. Now don't you want it? It's up to you, Snoke, it's—”

“COOL! Yeah, cool, very cool!”

“—The heat of the fire's died down...”

“UH-HUH! YOU'VE FIXED YOUR WAGON! WITH THIS SMART TALK, YOU JUST NOW FIXED YOUR WAGON! I'M GONNA MAKE A PHONE CALL THAT'LL WIPE THE GRIN OFF YOUR GREASY WOP FACE FOR GOOD!” He charges into hall and seizes phone. 

Solo crosses to Rey at kitchen sink. “Is my wop face greasy, Mrs. Snoke?”

She remains at mirror but her childish smile fades: her face goes vacant and blind: she suddenly tilts her head back against the bare throat of the man standing behind her. Her eyes clenched shut... His eyelids flutter as his body presses against all the mindless virgin softness of her abundant young flesh. Their hands, hers are stretched behind her, his before him.

Snoke bellows like a steer in the hall. “I WANT SPOT, MIZZ HOPKINS, WHE' IS SPOT!?”

“I think you better go 'way...” Rey tells Solo.

“I'm just waiting to take you girls away with me...”

Softly as in a dream, “Yeah, I'm goin’ too. I'll check in at the Varykino Hotel and now I better go up an' — he'p Maz pack...” Releases herself regretfully from the embrace and crosses into hall. 

Solo looks after her. As she passes Snoke utters a sharp outcry as Snoke strikes at her. 

“YOU GONNA BE SORRY FOR EV'RY TIME YOU LAID YOUR UGLY OLE HANDS ON ME, YOU STINKER, YOU! YOU STINKING STINKER, _STINKERRRRR!”_

He has drawn back his hand to smack her again, but quick as lightning she pastes him with a peach of a punch! Snoke stumbles dizzily about when he hears her footsteps running upstairs. Solo chuckles almost silently and goes quietly out the backdoor. 

Solo crosses through a yard littered with uncollected garbage, tin cans, refuse...

Snoke starts crashing into chairs, the table, etc. Rey watches with silent laughter from the hall. Snoke has trouble locating the kitchen closet. While he is fumbling for it, Rey dashes past the closet and to the phone area and snatches the phone from the bare floor. In a tense whisper, “Operator, I want the Police Chief of Naboo. Yais, the Chief. This is Rey Jakku speaking, the ex-Mrs. Snoke on Theed Road! My husband has got a shotgun and is threat'nin' to—”

Snoke seizes a broom then discovers his mistake with a howl of rage. He crashes against the wall. His nose is bloodied, but now he has his shotgun.

The crooked moon beams fitfully through a racing mackerel sky, the airs full of motion. Solo picks his way fastidiously among the refuse, wades through the tall seeding grass, into the front yard. Clutches the lower branch of a pecan tree and swings up into it. Cracks a nut between his teeth as — 

Snoke is shouting and blundering through the house. “HEY! WHERE YOU HIDING? WHERE YOU HIDING, WOP?”

Snoke with his shotgun and liquor bottle is already stumbling drunk.

Solo is in the tree; Rey screams. She comes running out front door followed by Snoke. She darts around side of house. Snoke is very drunk now. He goes the opposite way around the house. Solo drops out of the tree and gives Rey a low whistle. She rushes back to front yard.

 _“Oh, Gah, Gah,_ watch out, he’s got a shotgun. He’s —crazy! I callt th' Chief of—”

Solo leaps into tree again. “Grab my hand! Quick! Now up! Up, now Rey!” 

He hoists her into tree with him as the wild-eyed old bull comes charging back around house with his weapon. He blasts away at a shadow. (The yard is full of windy shadows.) 

Snoke is sobbing “BABYDOLL! BABY! BABY! BABYDOLL! MY BABY!” Goes stumbling around back of the house, great wind in the trees. 

Rey rests in the arms of Solo. 

The storm cellar door bangs open. Snoke fires through it. Then at the chicken coop. Then into the wheelless limousine chassis in side yard, etc.

Solo and Rey are in the fork of the pecan tree. Solo grins. “We're still playing hide-and-seek.”

Rey, excitedly, almost giggling, “How long you guess we gonna be up this tree?”

“I don't care. I’m _comfortable_ — Are you?”

Her answer is a sigh. He cracks a nut in his mouth and divides it with her. She giggles and whispers: “Shhhh!”

Snoke is raving, sobbing, stumbling. “Baby, my baby, oh, Babydoll, my babydoll...”

Silence. 

“HEY! WOP! YELLOWBELLY! WHERE ARE YUH?”

Maz comes forlornly out on the porch, weighed down by ancient suitcase, roped together. Fearfully, her hair blown wild by the wind. “Rey, honey? Honey? Rey, honey? 

“I SEE YOU! COME OUT OF THERE, YOU YELLOWBELLY WOP, YOU!” 

The shotgun blasts away behind the house. Maz is on the front porch uttering a low cry and drops her suitcase. Back against wall, hand to chest. 

A police siren approaches down Theed Road. 

Rey nestles in Solo’s arms in the tree. “I feel sorry for poor old Maz. She doesn't know where to go or what to do...”

The moon comes briefly out and shines on their crouched figures in the fork on the tree. 

Solo draws Rey tighter in his arms. Gently, he speaks, “Does anyone know where to go, or what?”

A police car stops before the house and men jump out.

Snoke staggers and sobs among the litter of uncollected garbage. “Babydoll, my baby! Yellow son of a—”

The police appear and pick him up.

“Wha’s this, who’s you?”

“This here is Sheriff Grummgar and that there’s Deputy Mitaka, Snoke, and right around here is the wagon. Got a call on you, boy!”

They support his limping figure. 

“Is something wrong, what is it, what’re you doin’?”

“Takin’ you into town, boy.”

“Not without my Babydoll, not without my baby!”

“Hell, she don’t need you, she don’t need nobody tonight. Ha Ha!,” says Deputy Mitaka.

Maz retreats into the shadows as police come around the house supporting Snoke’s limp figure. The lovers remain in the tree as the moon passes behind a cloud.

Stillness. Dark. Maz rocks on the front porch and sings a hymn: "Rock of Ages." “Rock of ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee!”

Solo drops out of the tree with arms lifted for Rey.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special THANK YOU to Mrs. Vi @mrsvioletwrites on Tumblr for creating some beautiful artwork for my first ever fanfic.

  
Rey Jakku stands on the sidewalk a moment, slightly bewildered and very amused. She watches the cab screech around the bend. She turns, goes into the hotel.

Solo stands in the alleyway across the street, his pickup truck parked nearby. He watches as Rey cuts inside.

She comes down the hallway, opens her door with a key. She goes inside, drops the hat, gloves and purse on her bureau. Unfolding a camisole, she holds it against her, gazes into the mirror. It looks beautiful. Suddenly a knock at the door — “Maz...?”

Another two knocks something like a confirmation. She smiles, cuts to the door, flings it open — but Solo is there. She's shocked, but recovers instantly — “I had a _feeling_ it was you — I knew it! It's amazing — I could tell it was you.”

His face remains placid as he puts on his sunglasses — “How'd you get home from the courthouse?”

“Took a cab.”

“Oh yeah? Where'd you get that?”

She stares at the camisole in her hands — “I adore camisoles.”

He nods dispassionately, walks into the room, gives the place the once-over, then — “Let's ride.”

Solo and Rey on her horse whipping down the highway. The dusk light breaks over the horizon.

Streaking down a two-lane dirt road obviously exhilarated by the velocity of their ride. The landscape becomes lush, the trees a riot of autumn splendor.

...As Solo and Rey whip up to the top of a small hill, skid to a stop. She scans the area quickly, gets her bearings. She speaks in clicking syllables, skids off to the valley below.

Rey and Solo ride cautiously through a series of hiking paths, then twist down a small embankment. A stream flows before them. They climb off the horse, look around quietly —

“God, this is beautiful,” he murmurs, “It reminds me of where I grew up. My father used to...”

She waits for an answer, it's not forthcoming — “Your father used to what...?”

“Nothing... it's just...” he changes the subject, “You must like places like this.”

All in good time, he thinks. He goes to the stream, balances on several rocks, moves to the other side. The stream flows between them —

“So, have you reconsidered my proposal?”

“What...?”

“What we talked about last time.”

“Rey...”

She starts a little dance step, climaxes it with spins and twirls — “Oh, come on — you know you really want to. You've been waiting for this opportunity... all... your... life...”

He can't help laughing — she freezes, looks at him coldly —

“I'm sorry — excuse me.”

“God — so why do you come around? You don't want to marry me, not that you have to. You don't want to sleep with me, not that you have to do that either. So why am I here?”

He smiles, walks off —

“There's a lot of things you don't know about me. You'd be surprised how many things I could do.”

He disappears around some trees —

“Take me home immediately! I want to go home. I can't stand this! I can't take this anymore! Ben!”

Solo moves through the trees smiling, studying nature —

“I don't need this! I was doing alright before I met you. _Stinkerrr,_ you need a haircut!”

He comes to a tree, leans against it contentedly, studies the foliage.

Rey paces back and forth frantically along the stream — To herself, “I don’t get this,” yelling, “Ben! Who do you think you are?! You don't care. You don't care about anything! I never wanted you to marry me anyway!”

Solo rests by the tree, observes two gin workers walking down the path toward him —

“You think you're a gentleman?! You're nothing! Archie was better. I never wanted to make a life with you or have your babies anyway.”

He's entranced by this lovely, very angry, spirited creature of his, screaming at him, smiles, stares at her a moment. Everything he's been through comes rushing at him like a locomotive. The confusion, the shouting and violence, the darkness that eclipsed his former life — it's all there, lying just below the surface, settled into his heart. But now there's a difference — he knows it's there and has discovered what could happen when it takes control of his life.

So as he stands still, he realizes that… he'll just take one thing at a time, and do it right. Better than anybody else. He smiles, realizes that in the last few weeks, he's never felt better than he feels right now. The workers pass him startled —

“Good evenin’.”

“BEN SOLO, I HATE YOU!”

“Good evenin’, sir.” And they walk down the path, disappear around the bend. Just then —

Rey is standing by his side, a wild flower in her hands — “I’m sorry,” she says softly, “I shouldn’t have said those things. Will you forgive me?”

He softly says, “Yes.” And takes the flower, slips it into his jacket, kisses her forehead.

As they ride down a leaf-strewn path and pull to a stop near the newly rebuilt First Order Gin. It stands large and silent like a painting. A low thunder rolls across the land...

Dusk light burns through the wooden slats... Steam rises from the wet cotton scattered throughout. The air is thick and damp. It begins to rain.

Rey stands in the middle of the gin, gazing at the storm. Beads of perspiration glisten on her forehead. She turns slowly, watches as Solo retrieves old blankets from a nearby stall. Their eyes search one another out, their breathing becomes short, expectant. She hesitates a moment, then pulls off her blouse, discards it to the moist, dusty floor.

Rain patters strongly against the gin. A deep thunder rolls. She's on top of him, moving deliciously, her body glowing in the purple, dusk light.

Moist, purple water shadows streak and course her skin as she moves slowly, then deliberately against him. He watches her avidly, his hands firmly on her thighs, and pumps up into her again and again... and again.

***

Leaves scatter as the horse whips through the wet path.

The streets glisten with the rain. Solo and Rey pull up in front of her hotel. She hugs him fiercely, steps off the horse, her face alive and fresh as a flower. His eyes sparkle —

“See you later?”

“When?”

“Why?”

“‘Cause, Ben Solo, I have somethin’ to do first.”

“What?”

“A secret...” she says coyly.

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“Okay, I’ll come by — eight o’clock.”

He nudges the horse into a trot — she touches his jacket lovingly — “Bye...”

He gallops off. She watches him a moment, her eyes glowing. She heads to her hotel, then stops short — grinning like a fool on the sidewalk. She looks around quickly, almost expecting someone to laugh at her. But no one's around, so she picks her steps up, goes inside.

...as she comes to a halt outside her room, skipping along the way. She opens her door, cuts inside.

She goes into the bathroom, fills the sink with water, washes her face. She smiles radiantly — she looks beautiful. Suddenly something seizes her thoughts. She opens her bureau drawer quickly, pulls out the yellow pages, leafs through it hurriedly, reads: Bakery, Bar, Beauty Parlor... then Bridal Shop. She stops, runs her finger down the page, then hunts quickly through her drawer. Her eyes dance mischievously when she pulls out her charm bracelet. She places it on her bureau, hurries to her clothes rack...

***

Solo and Rey kiss tentatively, then violently, finally pulling away. Rey seems to be taunting Solo, coaxing him into a trap. He kisses her mouth lustily — she pulls back, he’s snarling —

Rey’s scared — tries to be cool — “So — this is your place?”

“Yeah — _our_ place, _Bambina mia.”_

Heat floods into her womb like soft fire —

“You look pretty...” She touches his chest delicately — “Mine?”

“Yours,” he nods. 

She hesitates — but he reaches out tentatively, touches her breast —

“For keeps?”

Ben Solo, son of a scoundrel, _only_ plays for keeps, he wants to tell her. She knows. But their mutual desire is too strong for kid games tonight. Their lips seek one another out timidly, almost deferentially... then fervently.

***

Rey sits at the foot of the bed, Solo stands before her. Her wedding skirt is hiked along her thighs, her stockings attached to garters. Their hands search delicately across the contours of their bodies, drawing quick breaths from their lips. They kiss one another ardently, then quickly, like sparrows pecking seed. She goes to remove her skirt, but Solo stays her with a gesture, moving his hands along her thighs, touching delicately that spot between her legs. A low, whispery moan escapes from her lips.

Rey lies back, drawing Solo toward her. His lips move across her mouth, her neck, her breasts. She moans softly, pulls her skirt above her thighs, goes to remove it. Once again he stops her, slowly turns her onto her stomach.

She stands on her knees, her head resting on a pillow. His hands move up along the back of her thighs, past the garters to her panties. He tugs at them gently, then rubs his hand firmly between her legs. She moans suddenly, the shudder moving through her like a whirlwind...

***

Moonlight glows through the Quonset windows. Wind chimes stir gently in the night breeze.

Ben and Rey are asleep. He rests on his side, his hands gently supporting his face. She lies behind him, one leg dangling off the bed, one shoe discarded on the floor. All the time in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Trailers From Hell (a short review of the 1956 film):
> 
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BPvhI44nONk
> 
> “27 Wagons Full of Cotton” (the play that would later become the film):
> 
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=31_eH7gWbNk


End file.
